THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

IRVINE 

GIFT  OF 


MR.  CHARLES  KILMER 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA 


BY 

CHARLES   LAMB 


PHILADELPHIA 

HENRY   ALTEMUS 
1893. 


ASS 


Altemus* 
bcxjkbindery 
Philaoblfhia 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

The  South-Sea  House 5 

Oxford  in  the  Vacation .      i6 

Christ's  Hospital  Five-and-Thirty  ^ears  Ago 24 

The  Two  Races  of  Men 42 

New  Year's  Eve 50 

Mrs.  Battle's  Opinion  on  Whist 59 

A  Chapter  on  Ears 69 

All  Fools'  Day 76 

A  Quakers'  Meeting 8^ 

The  Old  and  the  NeW  School-Master 88 

Imperfect  Sympathies 100 

Witches,  and  Other  Night  Fears 1 12 

Valentine's  Day 1 2 1 

My  Relations 1 26 

Mackery  End,  in  Hertfordshire 135 

My  First  Play 142 

Modern  Gallantry 149 

The  Old  Benchers  of  the  Inner  Temple 155 

Grace  before  Meat 170 

Dream-Children :    A   Revery 180 

Distant  Correspondents 186 

The  Praise  of  Chimney-Sweepers ; 194 

A  Complaint  of  the  Decay  of  Beggars  in  the  Metropolis,  204 

A  Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig 215 

A  Bachelors  Complaint  of  the   Behavior  of  Married 

People 225 

On  Some  of  the  Old  Actors 235 

On  the  Artificial  Comedy  of  the  Last  Century 251 

3 


4  Contcntd* 

PAGE. 

On  the  Acting  of  Munden 263 

Preface — By  a  Friend  of  the  Late  Elia 269 

Blakesmoor  in  H shire 275 

Poor  Relations 282 

Detached  Thoughts  on  Books  and  Reading 292 

Stage  Illusion 301 

To  the  Shade  of  Elliston 306 

Ellistoniana 310 

The  Old  Margate  Hoy 318 

The  Convalescent 329 

Sanity  of  True  Genius 335 

Captain  Jackson 340 

The  Superannuated  Man 346 

The  Genteel  Style  in  Writing 356 

Barbara  S 363 

The  Tombs  in  the  Abbey 371 

Amicus  Redivivus 375 

Some  Sonnets  of  Sir  Philip  Sydney 382 

Newspapers  Thirty- Five  Years  Ago 393 

Barrenness  of  the  Imaginative  Faculty  in  the  Produc- 
tions of  Modem  Art 403 

The  Wedding 4^9 

Rejoicings  Upon   the  New  Year's  Coming  of  Age.  . .  427 

Old  China 435 

The  Child  Angel ;  A  Dream 443 

Confessions  of  a  Drunkard 447 

Popular  Fallacies 459 


ELIA 


THE  SOUTH-SEA  HOUSE. 


Reader,  in  thy  passage  from  the  Bank — where 
thou  hast  been  receiving  thy  half-yearly  dividends 
(supposing  thou  art  a  lean  annuitant  like  myself) 
— to  the  Flower  Pot,  to  secure  a  place  for  Dalston, 
or  Shacklewell,  or  some  other  thy  suburban 
retreat  northerly, — didst  thou  never  observe  a 
melancholy-looking,  handsome,  brick  and  stone 
edifice,  to  the  left — where  Threadneedle-street 
abuts  upon  Bishops-gate  ?  I  dare  say  thou  hast 
often  admired  its  magnificent  portals,  ever  gaping 
wide,  and  disclosing  to  view  a  grave  court,  with 
cloisters,  and  pillars,  with  few  or  no  traces  of 
goers-in  or  comers-out, — a  desolation  something 
like  Balclutha's.* 

This  was  once  a  house  of  trade, — a  centre  of 
busy  interests.  The  throng  of  merchants  was 
here — the  quick  pulse  of  gain — and  here  some 
forms  of  business  are  still  kept  up,  though  the  soul 
be  long  since  fled.  Here  are  still  to  be  seen  stately 
porticos ;   imposing  staircases,   offices  roomy  as 

^  I  passed  by  the  walls  of  Balelutha,  and  they  were  desolate. 
^QssjAN, 

5 


6  T605ass  ot  JSlia. 

the  state  apartments  in  palaces — deserted,  or 
thinly  peopled  with  a  few  straggling  clerks  ;  the 
still  more  sacred  interiors  of  court  and  committee- 
rooms,  with  venerable  faces  of  beadles,  door- 
keepers— directors  seated  in  form  on  solemn  days 
(to  proclaim  a  dead  dividend),  at  long  worm- 
eaten  tables,  that  have  been  mahogany,  with 
tarnished  gilt-leather  coverings,  supporting  massy 
silver  inkstands  long  since  dry ; — the  oaken 
wainscots  hung  with  pictures  of  deceased  gov- 
ernors and  sub-governors,  of  Queen  Anne,  and  the 
two  first  monarchs  of  the  Brunswick  dynasty  ; 
— huge  charts,  which  subsequent  discoveries 
have  antiquated  ;  dusty  maps  of  Mexico,  dim  as 
dreams, — and  soundings  of  the  Bay  of  Panama  ! 
The  long  passages  hung  with  buckets,  appended, 
in  idle  row,  to  walls,  whose  substance  might  defy 
any,  short  of  the  last,  conflagration  : — with  vast 
ranges  of  cellarage  under  all,  where  dollars  and 
pieces-of-eight  once  lay,  an  ''unsunned  heap," 
for  Mammon  to  have  solaced  his  solitary  heart 
withal, — long  since  dissipated,  or  scattered  into 
air  at  the  blast  of  the  breaking  of  that  famous 
Bubble. 

Such  is  the  South-Sea  House.  At  least,  such  it 
was  forty  years  ago,  when  I  knew  it, — a  mag- 
nificent relic  !  What  alteration  may  have  been 
made  in  it  since,  I  have  had  no  opportunities  of 
verifying.  Time,  I  take  for  granted,  has  not 
freshened  it.  No  wind  has  resuscitated  the  face 
of  the  sleeping  waters.  A  thicker  crust  by  this 
time  stagnates  upon  it.  The  moths  that  were 
then  battening  upon  its  obsolete  ledgers  and  day- 
books, have  rested  from  their  depredations,  but 
other   light  generations  have  succeeded,  making 


Tlhc  Soutb^Sea  Douse.  7 

fine  fretwork  among  their  single  and  double 
entries.  Layers  of  dust  have  accumulated  (a 
superfoetation  of  dirt  !)  upon  the  old  layers,  that 
seldom  used  to  be  disturbed,  save  by  some  curious 
finger,  now  and  then,  inquisitive  to  explore  the 
mode  of  bookkeeping  in  Queen  Anne's  reign  ; 
or,  with  less  hallowed  curiosity,  seeking  to  unveil 
some  of  the  mysteries  of  that  tremendous  hoax, 
whose  extent  the  petty  peculators  of  our  day 
look  back  upon  with  the  same  expression  of  in- 
credulous admiration,  and  hopeless  ambition  of 
rivalry,  as  would  become  the  puny  face  of  modern 
conspiracy  contemplating  the  Titan  sizeof  Vaux's 
superhuman  plot. 

Peace  to  the  manes  of  the  Bubble  !  Silence 
and  destitution  are  upon  thy  walls,  proud  house, 
for  a  memorial  ! 

Situated  as  thou  art,  in  the  very  heart  of  stirring 
and  living  commerce, — amid  the  fret  and  fever 
of  speculation, — with  the  Bank,  and  the  'Change, 
and  the  India-House  about  thee,  in  the  heyday  of 
present  prosperity,  with  their  important  faces,  as 
it  were,  insulting  thee,  their  poor  fieighbor  out  of 
business, — to  the  idle  and  merely  contemplative, 
— to  such  as  me,  old  house  !  there  is  a  charm  in 
thy  quiet  : — a  cessation — a  coolness  from  busi- 
ness— an  indolence  almost  cloistral — which  is 
delightful !  With  what  reverence  have  I  paced 
thy  great  bare  rooms  and  courts  at  eventide  ! 
They  spoke  of  the  past : — the  shade  of  some  dead 
accountant,  with  visionary  pen  in  ear,  would  flit 
by  me,  stiff  as  in  life.  Living  accounts  and 
accountants  puzzle  me.  I  have  no  skill  in  figur- 
ing. But  thy  great  dead  tomes,  which  scarce  three 
degenerate  clerks   of  the  present  day   could  lift 


8  Bssa^s  of  ;6Ua. 

from  their  enshrining  shelves — with  their  old 
fantastic  flourishes,  and  decorative  rubric  inter- 
lacings — their  sums  in  triple  columniations,  set 
down  with  formal  superfluity  of  ciphers — with 
pious  sentences  at  the  beginning,  without  which 
our  religious  ancestors  never  ventured  to  open 
a  book  of  business,  or  bill  of  lading — the  costly 
vellum  covers  of  some  of  them  almost  persuading 
us  that  we  are  got  into  some  hetier  library^ — are 
very  agreeable  and  edifying  spectacles.  I  can 
look  upon  these  defunct  dragoons  with  compla- 
cency. The  heavy,  odd-shaped,  ivory-handled 
penknives  (our  ancestors  had  every  thing  on  a 
larger  scale  than  we  have  hearts  for)  are  as  good 
as  any  thing  from  Herculaneum.  The  pounce- 
boxes  of  our  days  have  gone  retrograde. 

The  very  clerks  which  I  remember  in  the  South- 
Sea  House — I  speak  of  forty  years  back — had  an 
air  very  different  from  those  in  the  public  oftices 
that  I  have  had  to  do  with  since.  They  partook 
of  the  genius  of  the  place. 

They  were  mostly  (for  the  establishment  did 
not  admit  of  superfluous  salaries)  bachelors. 
Generally  (for  they  had  not  much  to  do)  persons  of 
a  curious  and  speculative  turn  of  mind.  Old-fash- 
ioned, for  a  reason  mentioned  before.  Humor- 
ists, for  they  were  of  all  descriptions  ;  and,  not 
having  been  brought  together  in  early  life  (which 
has  a  tendency  to  assimilate  the  members  of  cor- 
porate bodies  to  each  other),  but  for  the  most  part 
placed  in  this  house  in  ripe  or  middle  age,  they 
necessarily  carried  into  it  their  separate  habits 
and  oddities,  unqualified,  if  I  may  so  speak,  as 
into  a  common  stock.  Hence  they  formed  a  sort 
of  Noah's   ark.     Odd   fishes.     A   lay-monastery. 


XLbc  Soutb^Sca  Douse.  9 

Domestic  retainers  in  a  great  house,  kept  more 
for  show  than  for  use.  Yet  pleasant  fellows,  full 
of  chat, — and  not  a  few  among  them  had  arrived 
at  considerable  proficiency  on  the  German  flute. 

The  cashier  at  that  time  was  one  Evans,  a 
Cambro-Briton.  He  had  something  of  the  chol- 
eric complexion  of  his  countrymen  stamped  on 
his  visage,  but  was  a  worthy,  sensible  man  at 
bottom.  He  wore  his  hair,  to  the  last,  powdered 
and  frizzed  out,  in  the  fashion  which  I  remember 
to  have  seen  in  caricatures  of  what  was  termed  in 
my  young  days,  Maccarom'es.  He  was  the  last 
of  that  race  of  beaux.  Melancholy  as  a  gibcat, 
over  his  counter  all  the  forenoon,  I  think  I  see 
him  making  up  his  cash  (as  they  call  it)  with 
tremulous  fingers,  as  if  he  feared  every  one  about 
him  was  a  defaulter  ;  in  his  hypochondry  ready 
to  imagine  himself  one  ;  haunted  at  least  with  the 
idea  of  the  possibility  of  his  becoming  one  ;  his 
trustful  visage  clearing  up  a  little  over  his  roast 
neck  of  veal  at  Anderton's  at  two  (where  his  pict- 
ure still  hangs,  taken  a  little  before  his  death  by 
desire  of  the  master  of  the  coffee-house,  which  he 
had  frequented  for  the  last  five  and  twenty  years), 
but  not  attaining  the  meridian  of  its  animation  till 
evening  brought  on  the  hour  of  tea  and  visiting. 
The  simultaneous  sound  of  his  well-known  rap  at 
the  door  with  the  stroke  of  the  clock  announcing 
six,  was  a  topic  of  never-failing  mirth  in  the  fam- 
ilies which  this  dear  old  bachelor  gladdened  with 
his  presence.  Then  was  his  forte,  his  glorified 
hour  !  How  would  he  chirp,  and  expand,  over  a 
muffin  !  How  would  he  dilate  into  secret  history. 
His  countrymen.  Pennant  himself  in  particu- 
lar, could  not  be  more  eloquent  than  he  in  relation 


lo  ^essa^s  of  Blia. 

to  old  and  new  London — the  site  of  old  theatres, 
churches,  streets  gone  to  decay — where  Rosa- 
mond's Pond  stood — the  Mulberry-gardens — and 
the  Conduit  in  Cheap — with  many  a  pleasant 
anecdote,  derived  from  paternal  tradition,  of  those 
grotesque  figures  which  Hogarth  has  immortalized 
in  his  picture  oi  Noon, — the  w^orthy  descendants 
of  those  heroic  confessors  who,  flying  to  this  coun- 
try from  the  wrath  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth  and 
his  dragoons,  kept  alive  the  flame  of  pure  religion 
in  the  sheltering  obscurities  of  Hog  Lane,  and  the 
vicinity  of  the  Seven  Dials  ! 

Deputy,  under  Evans,  was  Thomas  Tame.  He 
had  the  air  and  stoop  of  a  nobleman.  You  would 
have  taken  him  for  one,  had  you  met  him  in  one 
of  the  passages  leading  to  Westminster  Hall.  By 
stoop,  I  mean  that  gentle  bending  of  the  body 
forwards,  which,  in  great  men,  must  be  supposed 
to  be  the  effect  of  an  habitual  condescending 
attention  to  the  applications  of  their  inferiors. 
While  he  held  you  in  converse,  you  felt  strained 
to  the  height  in  the  colloquy.  The  conference 
over,  you  were  at  leisure  to  smile  at  the  compar- 
ative insignificance  of  the  pretensions  which  had 
just  awed  you.  His  intellect  was  of  the  shallow- 
est order.  It  did  not  reach  to  a  saw  or  a  prov- 
erb. His  mind  was  in  its  original  state  of  white 
paper.  A  sucking-babe  might  have  posed  him. 
W^hat  was  it  then  .?  Was  he  rich  .'*  Alas  !  no. 
Thomas  Tame  was  very  poor.  Both  he  and  his 
wife  looked  outwardly  gentlefolks,  when  I  fear 
all  was  not  well  at  all  times  within.  She  had  a 
neat  meagre  person,  w^hich  it  was  evident  she  had 
not  sinned  in  over-pampering  ;  but  in  its  veins 
was   noble  blood.     She   traced   her  descent,   by 


^be  Soutb=Sea  Ibouee.  n 

some  labyrinth  of  relationship  which  I  never 
thoroughly  understood, — much  less  can  explain 
with  any  heraldic  certainty  at  this  time  of  day,  to 
the  illustrious  but  unfortunate  house  of  Derwent- 
water.  This  was  the  secret  of  Thomas'  stoop.  This 
was  the  thought — the  sentiment — the  bright  soli- 
tary star  of  your  lives — ye  mild  and  happy  pair — 
which  cheered  you  in  the  night  of  intellect,  and  in 
the  obscurity  of  your  station  !  This  was  to  you 
instead  of  riches,  instead  of  rank,  instead  of  glitter- 
ing attainments  ;  "and  it  was  worth  them  all  to- 
gether. You  insulted  none  with  it  ;  but  while 
you  wore  it  as  a  piece  of  defensive  armor  only, 
no  insult  likewise  could  reach  you  through  it. 
Decus  et  solajnen. 

Of  quite  another  stamp  was  the  then  account- 
ant, John  Tipp.  He  neither  pretended  to  high 
blood,  nor,  in  good  truth,  cared  one  fig  about  the 
matter.  He  ''thought  an  accountant  the  greatest 
character  in  the  world,  and  himself  the  greatest 
accountant  in  it."  Yet  John  was  not  without  his 
hobby.  The  fiddle  relieved  his  vacant  hours. 
He  sang,  certainly,  with  other  notes  than  to  the 
Orphean  lyre.  He  did,  indeed,  scream  and 
scrape  most  abominably.  His  fine  suite  of  official 
rooms  in  Threadneedle-street,  which,  without 
any  thing  very  substantial  appended  to  them, 
were  enough  to  enlarge  a  man's  notions  of  him- 
self that  lived  in  them  (I  know  not  who  is  the 
occupier  of  them  now),  resounded  fortnightly  to 
the  notes  of  a  concert  of  "  sweet  breasts,"  as  our 
ancestors  would  have  called  them,  culled  from 
club-rooms  and  orchestras — chorus-singers — first 
and  second  violoncellos — double  basses — and 
clarionets, — who  ate  his  cold  mutton  and  drank 


12  jeesn^e  ot  filfa. 

his  punch  and  praised  his  ear.  He  sate  like 
Lord  Midas  among  them.  But  at  the  desk  Tipp 
was  quite  another  sort  of  creature.  Thence  all 
ideas  that  were  purely  ornamental  were  banished. 
You  could  not  speak  of  any  thing  romantic  with- 
out rebuke.  Politics  were  excluded.  A  news- 
paper was  thought  too  refined  and  abstracted. 
The  whole  duty  of  man  consisted  in  writing  off 
dividend  warrants.  The  striking  of  the  annual 
balance  in  the  company's  books  (which,  perhaps, 
differed  from  the  balance  of  last  year  in  the  sum 
of  25/.  IS.  6d.)  occupied  his  days  and  nights  for  a 
month  previous.  Not  that  Tipp  was  blind  to  the 
deadness  of  things  (as  they  call  them  in  the  city) 
in  his  beloved  house,  or  did  not  sigh  for  a  return 
of  the  old  stirring  days  when  South-Sea  hopes 
were  young  (he  was  indeed  equal  to  the  wielding 
of  any  of  the  most  intricate  accounts  of  the  most 
flourishing  company  in  these  or  those  days)  ;  but 
to  a  genuine  accountant  the  difference  of  proceeds 
is  as  nothing.  The  fractional  farthing  is  as  dear 
to  his  heart  as  the  thousands  which  stand  before 
it.  He  is  the  true  actor,  who,  whether  his 
part  be  a  prince  or  a  peasant,  must  act  it  with 
like  intensity.  With  Tipp  form  was  every  thing. 
His  life  was  formal.  His  actions  seemed  ruled 
with  a  ruler.  His  pen  was  not  less  erring  than 
his  heart.  He  made  the  best  executor  in  the 
world  ;  he  was  plagued  with  incessant  executor- 
ships accordingly,  which  excited  his  spleen  and 
soothed  his  vanity  in  equal  ratios.  He  would 
swear  (for  Tipp  swore)  at  the  little  orphans, 
whose  rights  he  would  guard  with  a  tenacity  like 
the  grasp  of  the  dying  hand  that  CQmmer\ded 
their  interests  to   his.  prgtectiQil,     With  ali   this 


Zbc  Soutb*Sca  t>o\xsc.  13 

there  was  about  him  a  sort  of  timidity  (his  few 
enemies  used  to  give  it  a  worse  name),  a  something 
which,  in  reverence  to  the  dead,  we  will  place, 
if  you  please,  a  little  on  this  side  of  the  heroic. 
Nature  certainly  had  been  pleased  to  endow  John 
Tipp  with  a  sufficient  measure  of  the  principle  of 
self-preservation.  There  is  a  cowardice  which 
we  do  not  despise,  because  it  has  nothing  base  or 
treacherous  in  its  elements  ;  it  betrays  itself,  not 
you  ;  it  is  mere  temperament ;  the  absence  of  the 
romantic  and  enterprising  ;  it  sees  a  lion  in  the 
way,  and  will  not,  with  P'ortinbras,  "greatly  find 
quarrel  in  a  straw,"  when  some  supposed  honor 
is  at  stake.  Tipp  never  mounted  the  box  of  a 
stage-coach  in  his  life,  or  leaned  against  the 
rails  of  a  balcony,  or  walked  upon  the  ridge  of  a 
parapet,  or  looked  down  a  precipice,  or  let  off  a 
gun,  or  went  upon  a  water  party,  or  would 
willingly  let  you  go,  if  he  could  have  helped  it  ; 
neither  was  it  recorded  of  him  that,  for  lucre  or 
for  intimidation,  he  ever  forsook  friend  or  prin- 
ciple. 

Whom  next  shall  we  summon  from  the  dusty 
dead,  in  whom  common  qualities  become  un- 
common ?  Can  I  forget  thee,  Henry  Man,  the 
wit,  the  polished  man  of  letters,  the  author,  of  the 
South-Sea  House,  who  never  enteredst  thy  office 
in  a  morning,  or  quittedst  it  in  midday  (what 
didst  thou  in  an  office  ?)  without  some  quirk  that 
left  a  sting  ?  Thy  jibes  and  thy  jokes  are  now 
extinct,  or  survive  but  in  two  forgfotten  volumes, 
which  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  rescue  from  a 
stall  in  Barbican,  not  three  days  ago,  and  found 
thee  terse,  fresh,  epigrammatic,  as  alive.  Thy 
wit  is  a  little  gone  by  in  these  fastidious  days — • 


14  J£>sen^6  of  Blta. 

thy  topics  are  staled  by  the  "new-born  gau^s  " 
of  the  time, — but  great  thou  used  to  be  in  Public 
Ledgers,  and  in  Chronicles,  upon  Chatham  and 
Shelburne,  and  Rockingham,  and  Howe,  and 
Burgoyne,  and  Clinton,  and  the  war  which  ended 
in  the  tearing  from  Great  Britain  her  rebellious 
colonies, — and  Keppel,  and  Wilkes,  and  Saw- 
bridge,  and  Bull,  and  Dunning,  and  Pratt,  and 
Richmond, — and  such  small  politics. 

A  little  less  facetious,  and  a  great  deal  more 
obstreperous,  was  fine  rattling,  rattle-headed 
Plumer.  He  was  descended — not  in  a  right  line, 
reader  (for  his  lineal  pretensions,  like  his  per- 
sonal, favored  a  little  of  the  sinister  bend) — from 
the  Plumers  of  Hertfordshire.  So  tradition  gave 
him  out,  and  certain  family  features  not  a  little 
sanctioned  the  opinion.  Certainly  old  Walter 
Plumer  (his  reputed  author)  had  been  a  rake  in 
his  days,  and  visited  much  in  Italy,  and  had  seen 
the  world.  He  was  uncle,  bachelor-uncle,  to  the 
fine  old  whig  still  living,  who  has  represented  the 
county  in  so  many  successive  parliaments,  and 
has  a  fine  old  mansion  near  Ware.  Walter  flour- 
ished in  George  the  Second's  days,  and  was  the 
same  who  was  summoned  before  the  House  of 
Commons  about  a  business  of  franks,  with  the 
old  Duchess  of  Marlborough.  You  may  read  of 
it  in  Johnson's  "Life  of  Cave. "  Cave  came  off 
cleverly  in  that  business.  It  is  certain  our  Plumer 
did  nothing  to  discountenance  the  rumor.  He 
rather  seemed  pleased  whenever  it  was,  with  all 
gentleness,  insinuated.  But,  besides  his  family 
pretensions,  Plumer  was  an  engaging  fellow,  and 
sang  gloriously. 

Not  so  sweetly  sang  Plumer  as  thou  sangest, 


^be  Soutb^Sea  Douse.  15 

mild,  childlike,  pastoral  M.  ;  a  flute's  breathing 
less  divinely  whispering  than  thy  Arcadian  ntel- 
odies,  when,  in  tones  worthy  of  Arden,  thou  didst 
chant  that  song  sung  by  Amiens  to  the  banished 
Duke,  which  proclaims  the  winter  wind  more 
lenient  than  for  a  man  to  be  ungrateful.  Thy 
sire  was  old  surly  M.,  the  unapproachable 
church-warden  of  Bishopsgate.  He  knew  not 
what  he  did,  when  he  begat  thee,  like  spring, 
gentle  offspring  of  blustering  winter  : — only  un- 
fortunate in  thy  ending,  which  should  have  been 
mild,  conciliatory,  swan-like. 

Much  remains  to  sing.  Many  fantastic  shapes 
rise  up,  but  they  must  be  mine  in  private  ; — already 
I  have  fooled  the  reader  to  the  top  of  his  bent  ; 
— else  could  I  omit  that  strange  creature  Woollett, 
who  existed  in  trying  the  question  and  bought 
litigations  P — and  still  stranger,  inimitable,  solemn 
Hep  worth,  from  whose  gravity  Newton  might 
have  deduced  the  law  of  gravitation.  How  pro- 
foundly would  he  nib  a  pen — with  what  delibera- 
tion would  he  wet  a  wafer  ! 

But  it  is  time  to  close — night  s  wheels  are  rat- 
tling fast  over  me — it  is  proper  to  have  done 
with  this  solemn  mockery. 

Reader,  what  if  I  have  been  playing  with  thee 
all  this  while? — peradventure  the  very  names, 
which  I  have  summoned  up  before  thee,  are  fan- 
tastic— insubstantial — like  Henry  Pimpernel,  and 
old  John  Naps  of  Greece. 

Be  satisfied  that  something  answering  to  them 
has  had  a  being.  Their  importance  is  from  the 
past 


OXFORD  IN  THE  VACATION. 


Casting  a  preparatory  glance  at  the  bottom  of 
this  article — as  the  wary  connoisseur  in  prints, 
with  cursory  eye,  (which,  while  it  reads,  seems 
as  though  it  read  not),  never  fails  to  consult  the 
quis  sculpsit  in  the  corner,  before  he  pronounces 
some  rare  piece  to  be  a  Vivares,  or  a  Woollett — 
methinks  I  hear  you  exclaim,  Reader,  Who  is  EUa  ? 

Because  in  my  last  I  tried  to  divert  thee  with 
some  half-forgotten  humors  of  some  old  clerks 
defunct,  in  an  old  house  of  business,  long  since 
gone  to  decay,  doubtless  you  have  already  set 
me  down  in  your  mind  as  one  of  the  self-same 
college — a  votary  of  the  desk — a  notched  and 
cropt  scrivener — one  that  sucks  his  sustenance, 
as  certain  sick  people  are  said  to  do,  through  a 
quill. 

Well,  I  do  agnize  something  of  the  sort.  I  con- 
fess that  it  is  my  humor,  my  fancy — in  the  fore- 
part of  the  day,  when  the  mind  of  your  man  of 
letters  requires  some  relaxation  (and  none  better 
than  such  as  at  first  sight  seems  most  abhorrent 
from  his  beloved  studies)  to  while  away  some 
good  hours  of  my  time  in  the  contemplation  of 
indigos,  cottons,  raw  silks,  piece-goods,  flowered 
or  otherwise.  In  the  first  place  .  .  .  and  then 
it  sends  you  home  with  such  increased  appetite  to 
your  books  .  .  .  not  to  say,  that  your  outside 
i6 


©ifot&  in  tbe  Dacatfon.  17 

sheets,  and  waste  wrappers  of  foolscap,  do  receive 
into  them,  most  kindly  and  naturally,  the  impres- 
sion of  sonnets,  epigrams,  essays — so  that  the  very 
parings  of  a  counting-house  are,  in  some  sort,  the 
settings  up  of  an  author.  The  enfranchised  quill, 
that  has  plodded  all  the  morning  among  the  cart- 
rucks  of  figures  and  ciphers,  frisks  and  curvets 
so  at  its  ease  over  the  flowery-carpet  ground  of 
a  midnight  dissertation.  It  feels  its  promotion. 
.  .  .  So  that  you  see,  upon  the  whole,  the  liter- 
ary dignity  oi  Elia  is  very  little,  if  at  all,  compro- 
mised in  the  condescension. 

Not  that,  in  my  anxious  detail  of  the  many  com- 
modities incidental  to  the  life  of  a  public  ofhce,  I 
would  be  thought  blind  to  certain  flaws,  which 
a  cunning  carper  might  be  able  to  pick  in  this 
Joseph's  vest.  And  here  I  must  have  leave,  in 
the  fulness  of  my  soul,  to  regret  the  abolition,  and 
doing-away-with  altogether,  of  those  consolatory 
interstices,  and  sprinklings  of  freedom,  through 
the  four  seasons, — i\\Qred-leiter  days,  now  become, 
to  all  intents  and  purposes,  dead-letter  days.  There 
was  Paul,  and  Stephen,  and  Barnabas — 

Andrew  and  John,  men  famous  in  old  times 

— we  were  used  to  keep  all  their  days  holy,  as 
long  back  as  I  was  at  school  at  Christ's.  I  remem- 
ber their  effigies,  by  the  same  token,  in  the  old 
Basket  Prayer  Book.  There  hung  Peter  in  his 
uneasy  posture — holy  Bartlemy  in  the  trouble- 
some act  of  flaying,  after  the  famous  Marsyas  by 
Spagnoletti.  I  honored  them  all,  and  could  almost 
have  wept  the  defalcation  of  Iscariot — so  much 
did  we  love  to  keep  holy  memories  sacred  ; — only 
methought  I  aUttle  grudged  at  the  coalition  of  the 
z 


1 8  '    Bssa^s  of  sua. 

befler /tide  \Y\ih.  Simon — clubbing  (as  it  were)  their 
sanctities  together,  to  make  up  one  poor  gaudy- 
day  between  them — as  an  economy  unworthy  of 
the  dispensation. 

These  were  bright  visitations  in  a  scholar's  and 
a  clerk's  life — "far  off  their  coming  shone." — I 
was  as  good  as  an  almanac  in  those  days.  I  could 
have  told  you  such  a  saint's  day  falls  out  next 
week,  or  the  week  after.  Peradventure  the  Epiph- 
any, by  some  periodical  infelicity,  would,  once 
in  six  years,  merge  in  the  Sabbath.  Now  am  I 
little  better  than  one  of  the  profane.  Let  me  not 
be  thought  to  arraign  the  wisdom  of  my  civil  supe- 
riors, who  have  judged  the  further  observation  of 
these  holy  tides  to  be  papistical,  superstitious. 
Only  in  a  custom  of  such  longstanding,  methinks, 
if  their  Holinesses  the  Bishops  had,  in  decency, 
been  first  sounded — but  I  am  wading  out  of  my 
depths.  I  am  not  the  man  to  decide  the  limits  of 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  authority — I  am  plain  Elia 
— no  Selden,  nor  Archbishop  Usher — though  at 
present  in  the  thick  of  their  books,  here  in  the  heart 
of  learning,  under  the  shadow  of  the  mighty  Bodley. 

I  can  here  play  the  gentleman,  enact  the  student. 
To  such  a  one  as  myself,  who  has  been  defrauded 
in  his  young  years  of  the  sweet  food  of  academic 
institution,  nowhere  is  so  pleasant,  to  while  away 
a  few  idle  weeks  at,  as  one  or  other  of  the  Universi- 
ties. Their  vacation,  too,  at  this  time  of  the  year, 
falls  in  so  pat  with  ours.  Here  I  can  take  my  walks 
unmolested,  and  fancy  myself  of  what  degree  or 
standing  I  please.  I  seem  admitted  ad  eundeni. 
I  fetch  up  past  opportunities.  I  can  rise  at  the 
chapcl-bell,  and  dream  that  it  rings  for  me.  In 
moods  of  humility  I  can  be  a  Sizar,  or  a  Servitor. 


©itorD  in  tbe  Dacation, 


19 


When  the  peacock  vein  rises,  I  strut  a  Gentleman 
Commoner.  In  graver  moments  I  proceed  Mas- 
ter of  Arts.  Indeed  I  do  not  think  I  am  much  un- 
h*ke  that  respectable  character.  I  have  seen  your 
dim-eyed  vergers,  and  bedmakers  in  spectacles, 
drop  a  bow  or  a  curtsy,  as  I  pass,  wisely  mistak- 
ing me  for  something  of  the  sort.  I  go  about  in 
black,  which  favors  the  notion.  Only  in  Christ 
Church  reverend  quadrangle,  I  can  be  content  to 
pass  for  nothing  short  of  a  Seraphic  Doctor. 

The  walks  at  these  times  are  so  much  one's  own, 
— the  tall  trees  of  Christ's,  the  groves  of  Mag- 
dalen !  The  halls  deserted,  and  with  open  doors 
inviting  one  to  slip  in  unperceived,  and  pay  a 
devoir  to  some  Founder,  or  noble  or  royal  Bene- 
factress (that  should  have  been  ours),  whose  por- 
trait seems  to  smile  upon  their  overlooked  beads- 
man, and  to  adopt  me  for  their  own.  Then,  to  take 
a  peep  in  by  the  way  at  the  butteries,  and  sculler- 
ies, redolent  of  antique  hospitality  ;  the  immense 
caves  of  kitchens,  kitchen  fireplaces,  cordial  re- 
cesses ;  ovens  whose  first  pies  were  baked  four 
centuries  ago  ;  and  spits  which  have  cooked  for 
Chaucer  !  Not  the  meanest  minister  among  the 
dishes  but  is  hallowed  to  me  through  his  imagina- 
tion, and  the  Cook  goes  forth  a  Manciple. 

Antiquity !  thou  wondrous  charm,  what  art 
thou  }  that  being  nothing,  art  every  thing  I  When 
thou  wert,  thou  were  not  antiquity — then  thou 
wert  nothing,  but  hadst  a  remoter  antiquity,  as 
thou  calledst  it,  to  look  back  to  with  blind  vener- 
ation ;  thou  thyself  being  to  thyself  flat,  jejune, 
modern!  What  mystery  lurks  in  this  retrover- 
sion .?  or  what  half  Januses  *  are  we,  that  cannot 

*  Januses  of  one  face. — Sir  Thomas  Browne. 


20  lEse^'Qe  of  J&Ua. 

look  forward  with  the  same  idolatry  with  which 
we  forever  revert !  The  mighty  future  is  nothing, 
being  every  thing  !  the  past  is  every  thing  being 
nothing  ! 

What  were  thy  dark  ages  ?  Surely  the  sun  rose 
as  brightly  then  as  now,  and  man  got  him  to  his 
work  in  the  morning.  Why  is  it  we  can  never 
hear  mention  of  them  without  an  accompanying 
feeling  as  though  a  palpable  obscure  had  dimmed 
the  face  of  things,  and  that  our  ancestors  wan- 
dered to  and  fro  groping  ! 

Above  all  thy  rarities,  old  Oxenford,  what  do 
most  arride  and  solace  me  are  thy  repositories  of 
mouldering  learning,  thy  shelves. 

What  a  place  to  be  in  is  an  old  library  !  It 
seems  as  though  all  the  souls  of  all  the  writers  that 
have  bequeathed  their  labors  to  these  Bodleians 
were  reposing  here  as  in  some  dormitory,  or  middle 
state.  I  do  not  want  to  handle,  to  profane  the 
leaves,  their  winding-sheets.  I  could  as  soon 
dislodge  a  shade.  I  seem  to  inhale  learning, 
walking  amid  their  foliage  ;  and  the  odor  of  their 
old  moth-scented  coverings  is  fragrant  as  the 
first  bloom  of  those  sciential  apples  which  grew 
amid  the  happy  orchard. 

Still  less  have  I  curiosity  to  disturb  the  elder 
repose  of  MSS.  Those  varies  lectiones,  so  tempt- 
ing to  the  more  erudite  palates,  do  but  disturb 
and  unsettle  my  faith.  I  am  no  Herculanean 
raker.  The  credit  of  the  three  witnesses  might 
have  slept  unimpeached  for  me.  I  leave  these 
curiosities  to  Porson,  and  toG.  D. — whom,  by  the 
way,  I  found  busy  as  a  moth  over  some  rotten 
archive,  rummaged  out  of  some  seldom-explored 
press,  in  a  nook  at  Oriel.     With  long  poring,   he 


©itorD  in  tbc  IDacation.  21 

is  grown  almost  into  a  book.  He  stood  as  pas- 
sive as  one  by  the  side  of  the  old  shelves.  I 
longed  to  new  coat  him  in  russia,  and  assign  him 
his  place.  He  might  have  mustered  for  a  tall 
Scapula. 

D.  is  assiduous  in  his  visits  to  these  seats  of 
learning.  No  inconsiderable  portion  of  his  moder- 
ate fortune,  I  apprehend,  is  consumed  in  journeys 
between  them  and  Clifford's-inn — where,  like  a 
dove  on  the  asp's  nest,  he  has  long  taken  up  his 
unconscious  abode,  amid  an  incongruous  as- 
sembly of  attorneys,  attorney's  clerks,  apparitors, 
promoters,  vermin  of  the  law,  among  whom  he 
sits  '*  in  calm  and  sinless  peace."  The  fangs  of 
the  law  pierce  him  not — the  winds  of  litigation 
blow  over  his  humble  chambers — the  hard  sheriffs 
officer  moves  his  hat  as  he  passes — legal  nor  ille- 
gal discourtesy  touches  him — none  thinks  of  offer- 
ing violence  or  injustice  to  him — you  would  as 
soon  "  strike  an  abstract  idea." 

D.  has  been  engaged,  he  tells  me,  through  a 
course  of  laborious  years,  in  an  investigation  into 
all  curious  matter  connected  with  the  two  Univer- 
sities, and  has  lately  lit  upon  a  MS.  collection  of 

charters,  relative  to  C ,  by  which  he  hopes  to 

settle  some  disputed  points,  particularly  that  long 
controversy  between  them  as  to  priority  of  foun- 
dation. The  ardor  with  which  he  engages  in  these 
liberal  pursuits,  I  am  afraid,  has  not  met  with  all 
the    encouragement    it  deserved,  either  here,   or 

at  C .     Your  caputs   and  heads    of  colleges 

care  less  than  anybody  else  about  these  ques- 
tions. Contented  to  suck  the  milky  fountains  of 
their  Alma  Maters,  without  inquiring  into  the 
venerable  gentlewomen's  years,  they  rather  hold 


22  iSesa^e  ot  JElin,    • 

such  curiosities  to  be  impertinent— unreverend. 
They  have  their  good  glebe  lands  m  maiiu,  and 
care  not  much  to  rake  into  the  title  deeds.  I 
gather  at  least  so  much  from  other  sources,  for  D. 
is  not  a  man  to  complain. 

D.  started  like  an  unbroke  heifer,  when  I  inter- 
rupted him.  A  priori  it  was  not  very  probable  that 
we  should  have  met  in  Oriel.  But  D.  would  have 
done  the  same  had  I  accosted  him  on  the  sudden 
in  his  own  walks  in  Clifford  s-inn,  or  in  the  Temple. 
In  addition  to  a  provoking  short-sightedness  (the 
effect  of  late  studies  and  watchings  at  the  mid- 
night oil),  D.  is  the  most  absent  of  men.  He 
made  a  call  the  other  morning  at  our  friend  M.'s 
in  Bedford  Square,  and,  finding  nobody  at  home, 
was  ushered  into  the  hall,  where,  asking  for  pen 
and  ink,  with  great  exactitude  of  purpose  he 
enters  me  his  name  in  the  book — which  ordina- 
rily lies  about  in  such  places,  to  record  the  failures 
of  the  untimely  or  unfortunate  visitor — and  takes 
his  leave  with  many  ceremonies  and  professions 
of  regret.  Some  two  or  three  hours  after,  his 
walking  destinies  returned  him  into  the  same 
neighborhood  again,  and  again  the  quiet  image 
of  the  fireside  circle  at  M.'s — Mrs.  M.  presiding 
at  it  like  a  Queen  Lar,  with  pretty  A.  S.  at  her 
side — striking  irresistibly  on  his  fancy,  he  makes 
another  call  (forgetting  that  they  were  "cer- 
tainly not  to  return  from  the  country  before  that 
day  week "),  and  disappointed  a  second  time, 
inquires  for  pen  and  paper  as  before  ;  again  the 
book  is  brought,  and  in  the  line  just  above  that 
in  which  he  is  about  to  print  his  second  name 
(his  re-script) — his  first  name  (scarce  dry) — looks 
out  upon  him  like  another  Sosia,  or  as  if  a  man 


Qxtotb  in  tbe  IDacation.  23 

should  suddenly  encounter  his  own  duplicate  ! 
The  effect  may  be  conceived.  D.  made  many  a 
good  resolution  against  any  such  lapses  in  future. 
I  hope  he  will  not  keep  them  too  rigorously. 

For  with  G.  D. — to  be  absent  from  the  body  is 
sometimes  (not  to  speak  it  profanely)  to  be  pres- 
ent with  the  Lord.  At  the  very  time  when  per- 
sonally encountering  thee,  he  passes  on  with  no 
recognition — or,  being  stopped,  starts  like  a  thing 
surprised — at  that  moment,  reader,  he  is  on 
Mount  Tabor — or  Parnassus — or  co-sphered  with 
Plato — or,  with  Harrington,  framing  "immortal 
commonwealths  " — devising  some  plan  of  amel- 
ioration to  thy  country,  or  thy  species — peradvent- 
ure  meditating  some  individual  kindness  or  court- 
esy to  be  done  to  /hee  thyself,  the  returning  con- 
sciousness of  which  made  him  to  start  so  guiltily 
at  thy  obtruded  personal  presence. 

D.  is  delightful  anywhere,  but  he  is  at  the  best 
in  such  places  as  these.  He  cares  not  much  for 
Bath.  He  is  out  of  his  element  at  Buxton,  at 
Scarborough,  or  Harrowgate.  The  Cam  and  the 
Isis  are  to  him  "  better  than  all  the  waters  of 
Damascus."  On  the  Muses'  hill  he  is  happy,  and 
good,  as  one  of  the  Shepherds  on  the  Delectable 
Mountains  ;  and  when  he  goes  about  with  you  to 
show  you  the  halls  and  colleges,  you  think  you 
have  with  you  the  Interpreter  at  the  House  Beau- 
tiful. 


CHRIST'S    HOSPITAL    FIVE-AND-THIRTY 
YEARS  AGO. 


In  Mr.  Lamb's  "Works,"  published  a  year  or 
two  since,  I  find  a  magnificent  eulogy  on  my  old 
school,*  such  as  it  was,  or  now  appears  to  him 
to  have  been,  between  the  years  1782  and  1789. 
It  happens,  very  oddly,  that  my  own  standing 
at  Christ's  w^as  nearly  corresponding  with  his  : 
and,  with  all  gratitude  to  him  for  his  enthusiasm 
for  the  cloisters,  I  think  he  has  contrived  to  bring 
together  whatever  can  be  said  in  praise  of  them, 
dropping  all  the  other  side  of  the  argriment  most 
ingeniously. 

I  remember  L.  at  school ;  and  can  well  recol- 
lect that  he  had  some  peculiar  advantages,  which 
I  and  others  of  his  schoolfellows  had  not.  His 
friends  lived  in  town,  and  were  near  at  hand  ; 
and  he  had  the  privilege  of  going  to  see  them,  al- 
most as  often  as  he  wished,  through  some  invidious 
distinction  which  was  denied  to  us.  The  present 
worthy  sub-treasurer  to  the  Inner  Temple  can  ex- 
plain how  that  happened.  He  had  his  tea  and 
hot  rolls  in  a  morning,  while  we  were  battening 
upon  our  quarter-of-a-penny-loaf — our  crug — 
moistened  with  attenuated  small  beer,  in  wooden 

*  Recollections  of  Christ's  Hospital. 
24 


Cbrt0t'6  IboepitaL  25 

pig-gins,  smacking  of  the  pitched  leathern  jack  it 
was  poured  from.  Our  Alonday's  milk  porridge, 
blue  and  tasteless,  and  the  pease  soup  of  Satur- 
day coarse  and  choking,  were  enriched  for  him 
with  a  slice  of  "  extraordinary  bread  and  butter," 
from  the  hot  loaf  of  the  Temple.  The  Wednes- 
day's mess  of  millet,  somewhat  less  repugnant — 
(we  had  three  banyan  to  four  meat  days  in  a 
week)  was  endeared  to  his  palate  with  a  lump  of 
double-refined,  and  a  smack  of  ginger  (to  make 
it  go  down  the  more  glibly)  or  the  fragrant  cin- 
namon. In  lieu  of  our  half-pickled  Sundays, 
quite  fresh  boiled  beef  on  Thursdays  (strong  as 
caro  equina),  with  detestable  marigolds  floating  in 
a  pail  to  poison  the  broth — our  scanty  mutton 
scrags  on  Fridays — and  rather  more  savory,  but 
grudging  portions  of  the  same  flesh,  rotten-roasted 
or  rare,  on  the  Tuesdays  (the  only  dish  which  ex- 
cited our  appetites,  and  disappointed  our  stomachs 
in  almost  equal  proportion) — he  had  his  hot  plate 
of  roast  veal,  or  the  more  tempting  griskin  (ex- 
otics unknown  to  our  palates),  cooked  in  the 
paternal  kitchen  (a  great  thing),  and  brought  him 
daily  by  his  maid  or  aunt !  I  remember  the  good 
old  relative  (in  whom  love  forbade  pride),  squat- 
ting down  upon  some  odd  stone  in  a  by-nook  of 
the  cloisters,  disclosing  the  viands  (of  higher  re- 
gale than  those  cates  which  the  ravens  ministered 
to  the  Tishbite)  ;  and  the  contending  passions 
of  L.  at  the  unfolding.  There  was  love  for  the 
bringer  ;  shame  for  the  thing  brought,  and  the 
manner  of  its  bringing  ;  sympathy  for  those  who 
were  too  many  to  share  in  it ;  and,  at  top  of  all, 
hunger  (eldest,  strongest  of  the  passions  !)  pre- 
dominant,   breaking  down  the   stony   fences  of 


26  jessaiss  ot  lElin^ 

shame,  and  awkwardness,  and  a  troubled  over- 
consciousness. 

I  was  a  poor  friendless  boy.  My  parents  and 
those  who  should  care  for  me,  were  far  away; 
Those  few  acquaintances  of  theirs,  which  they 
could  reckon  upon  being-  kind  to  me  in  the  great 
city,  after  a  little  forced  notice,  which  they  had 
the  grace  to  take  of  me  on  my  first  arrival  in 
town,  soon  grew  tired  of  my  holiday  visits.  They 
seemed  to  them  to  recur  too  often,  though  I 
thought  them  few  enough  ;  and  one  after  another 
they  all  failed  me,  and  I  felt  myself  alone  among 
six  hundred  playmates. 

O  the  cruelty  of  separating  a  poor  lad  from  his 
early  homestead  !  The  yearnings  which  I  used  to 
have  toward  it  in  those  unfledged  years  !  How, 
in  my  dreams,  would  my  native  town  (far  in  the 
west)  come  back,  with  its  church  and  trees,  and 
faces  !  How  I  would  wake  weeping,  and  in  the 
anguish  of  my  heart,  exclaim  upon  sweet  Calne 
in  Wiltshire. 

To  this  late  hour  of  my  life,  I  trace  impressions 
left  by  the  recollection  of  those  friendless  holi- 
days. The  long  warm  days  of  summer  never 
return  but  they  bring  with  them  a  gloom  from  the 
haunting  memory  of  those  whole-day  leaves,  when 
by  some  strange  arrangement  we  were  turned 
out,  for  the  livelong  day,  upon  our  own  hands, 
whether  we  had  friends  to  go  to,  or  none.  I 
remember  those  bathing  excursions  to  the  New 
River,  which  L.  recalls  with  such  relish,  better,  I 
think,  than  he  can — for  he  was  a  home-seeking 
lad,  and  did  not  much  care  for  such  water- 
pastimes  : — How  merrily  we  would  sally  forth 
into  the  fields ;  and  strip  under  the  first  warmth 


ChxieVs  Ibospltal.  27 

of. the  sun,  and  wanton  like  young  dace  in  the 
streams ;  getting  us  appetites  for  noon,  which 
those  of  us  that  were  penniless  (our  scanty  morn- 
ing crust  long  since  exhausted)  had  not  the  means 
of  allaying — while  the  cattle,  and  the  birds,  and 
the  fishes,  were  at  feed  about  us,  and  we  had 
nothing  to  satisfy  our  cravings — the  very  beauty 
of  the  day,  and  the  exercise  of  the  pastime,  and 
the  sense  of  liberty,  setting  a  keener  edge  upon 
them  ! — How  faint  and  languid,  finally,  we  would 
return,  toward  nightfall,  to  our  desired  morsel, 
half-rejoicing,  half-reluctant,  that  the  hours  of  our 
uneasy  liberty  had  expired  ! 

It  was  worse  in  the  days  of  winter,  to  go  prowl- 
ing about  the  streets  objectless — shivering  at  cold 
windows  of  print-shops,  to  extract  a  little  amuse- 
ment ;  or  haply,  as  a  last  resort  in  the  hopes  of  a 
little  novelty,  to  pay  a  fifty-times  repeated  visit 
(where  our  individual  faces  should  be  as  well 
known  to  the  warden  as  those  of  his  own  charges) 
to  the  Lions  in  the  Tower — to  whose  levee,  by 
courtesy  immemorial,  we  had  a  prescriptive  title 
to  admission. 

L.  's  governor  (so  we  called  the  patron  who  pre- 
sented us  to  the  foundation)  lived  in  a  manner 
under  his  paternal  roof.  Any  complaint  which 
he  had  to  make  was  sure  of  being  attended  to. 
This  was  understood  at  Christ's,  and  was  an 
effectual  screen  to  him  against  the  severity  of 
masters,  or  worse  tyranny  of  the  monitors.  The 
oppressions  of  these  young  brutes  are  heart-sick- 
ening to  call  to  recollection.  I  have  been  called 
out  of  my  bed,  and  waked  for  the  purpose,  in  the 
coldest  winter  nights — and  this  not  once,  but 
night  after  night — in  my  shirt,  to  receive  the  dis- 


28  Bs6a^3  of  :eua. 

cipline  of  a  leathern  thong,  with  eleven  other  suf- 
ferers, because  it  pleased  my  callow  overseer, 
when  there  had  been  any  talking  heard  after  we 
were  gone  to  bed,  to  make  the  last  six  beds  in 
the  dormitory,  where  the  youngest  children  of  us 
slept,  answerable  for  an  offence  they  neither  dared 
to  commit,  nor  had  the  power  to  hinder.  The 
same  execrable  tyranny  drove  the  younger  part  of 
us  from  the  fires,  when  our  feet  were  perishing 
with  snow ;  and,  under  the  crudest  penalties, 
forbade  the  indulgence  of  a  drink  of  water  when 
we  lay  in  sleepless  summer  nights,  fevered  with 
the  season  and  the  day's  sports. 

There  was  one  H.,  who,  I  learned,  in  after  days, 
was  seen  expiating  some  maturer  offence  in  the 
hulks.  (Do  I  flatter  myself  in  fancying  that  this 
might  be  the  planter  of  that  name,  who  suffered — 
at  Nevis,  I  think,  or  St.  Kitts — some  few  years 
since.?  My  friend  Tobin  was  the  benevolent  in- 
strument of  bringing  him  to  the  gallows.)  This 
petty  Nero  actually  branded  a  boy,  who  had 
offended  him,  with  a  red-hot  iron  ;  and  nearly 
starved  forty  of  us,  with  exactmg  contributions, 
to  the  one  half  of  our  bread,  to  pamper  a  young 
ass,  which,  incredible  as  it  may  seem,  with  the 
connivance  of  the  nurse's  daughter  (a  young 
flame  of  his)  he  had  contrived  to  smuggle  in,  and 
keep  upon  the  leads  of  the  tvard,  as  they  called 
our  dormitories.  This  game  went  on  for  better 
than  a  week,  till  the  foolish  beast,  not  able  to  fare 
well  but  he  must  cry  roast  meat — happier  than 
Caligula's  minion,  could  he  have  kept  his  own 
counsel — but,  foolisher,  alas  !  than  any  of  his  spe- 
cies in  the  fables — waxing  fat,  and  kicking,  in  the 
fulness  of  bread,  one  unlucky  minute  would  needs 


Cbc(5t'0  Doapital.  29 

proclaim  his  good  fortune  to  the  world  below  ; 
and,  laying  out  his  simple  throat,  blew  such  a 
ram's-horn  blast  as  (toppling  down  the  walls  of 
his  own  Jericho)  set  concealment  any  longer  at 
defiance.  The  client  was  dismissed,  with  certain 
attentions,  to  Smithfield  ;  but  I  never  understood 
that  the  patron  underwent  any  censure  on  the 
occasion.  This  was  in  the  stewardship  of  L, 's 
admired  Perry. 

Under  the  same  facile  administration,  can  L. 
have  forgotten  the  cool  impunity  with  which  the 
nurses  used  to  carry  away  openly,  in  open  plat- 
ters, for  their  own  tables,  one  out  of  two  of  every 
hot  joint,  which  the  careful  matron  had  been 
seeing  scrupulously  weighed  out  for  our  dinners  ? 
These  things  were  daily  practised  in  that  magnifi- 
cent apartment,  which  L.  (i^^rown  connoisseur 
since,  we  presume)  praises  so  highly  for  the  grand 
paintings  *'by  Verrio,  and  others,"  with  which 
it  is  "hung  round  and  adorned. "  But  the  sight 
of  sleek,  well-fed  blue-coat  boys  in  pictures  was, 
at  that  time,  I  believe,  little  consolatory  to  him, 
or  us,  the  living  ones,  who  saw  the  better  part  of 
our  provisions  carried  away  before  our  faces  by 
harpies  ;  and  ourselves  reduced  (with  the  Trojan 
in  the  hall  of  Dido) 

To  feed  our  mind  with  idle  portraiture. 

L.  has  recorded  the  repugnance  of  the  school 
to  gags,  or  the  fat  of  fresh  beef  boiled  ;  and  sets 
it  down  to  some  superstition.  But  these  unctuous 
morsels  are  never  grateful  to  young  palates  (chil- 
dren are  universally  fat-haters),  and  in  strong, 
coarse,  boiled  meats,  unsalled,  are  detestable.  A 
gag-eater  in  our  time  was  equivalent  to  a. ghoul,  and 


30  ;60sai5S  of  Blla. 

held  in  equal  detestation.     suffered  under 

the  imputation  : 

'Twas  said 
He  ate  strange  flesh. 

He  was  observed,  after  dinner,  carefully  to 
gather  up  the  remnants  left  at  his  table  (not 
many,  nor  very  choice  fragments  you  may  credit 
me), — and,  in  an  especial  manner,  these  disrep- 
utable morsels,  which  he  would  convey  away, 
and  secretly  stow  in  the  settle  that  stood  at  his 
bedside.  None  saw  when  he  ate  them.  It  was 
rumored  that  he  privately  devoured  them  in  the 
night.  He  was  watched,  but  no  traces  of  such 
midnight  practices  were  discoverable.  Some 
reported  that  on  leave-days  he  had  been  seen  to 
carry  out  of  the  bounds  a  large  blue  check  hand- 
kerchief, full  of  something.  This,  then,  must  be 
the  accursed  thing.  Conjecture  next  was  at  work 
to  imagine  how  he  could  dispose  of  it.  Some 
said  he  sold  it  to  the  beggars.  This  belief 
generally  prevailed.  He  went  about  moping. 
None  spake  to  him.  No  one  would  play  with 
him.  He  was  excommunicated  ;  put  out  of  the 
pale  of  the  school.  He  was  too  powerful  a  boy 
to  be  beaten,  but  he  underwent  every  mode  of 
that  negative  punishment  which  is  more  grievous 
than  many  stripes.  Still  he  persevered.  At 
length  he  was  observed  by  two  of  his  school- 
fellows, who  were  determined  to  get  at  the 
secret,  and  had  traced  him  one  leave-day  for  that 
purpose,  to  enter  a  large  worn-out  building,  such 
as  there  exist  specimens  of  in  Chancery-lane, 
which  are  let  out  to  various  scales  of  pauperism 
with  open  door  and  a  common   staircase.     After 


CbtlBt'e  1b05pital.  31 

him  they  silently  slunk  in  and  followed  by  stealth 
up  four  flights,  and  saw  him  tap  at  a  poor  wicket, 
which  was  opened  by  an  aged  woman,  meanly 
clad.  Suspicion  was  now  ripened  into  certainty. 
The  informers  had  secured  their  victim.  They 
had  him  in  their  toils.  Accusation  was  formally 
preferred,  and  retribution  most  signal  was  looked 
for.  Mr.  Hathaway,  the  then  steward  (for  this 
happened  a  little  after  my  time),  with  that  pa- 
tient sagacity  which  tempered  all  his  conduct, 
determined  to  investigate  the  matter  before  he 
proceeded  to  sentence.  The  result  was,  that  the 
supposed  mendicants,  the  receivers  or  purchasers 
of  the  mysterious  scraps,  turned   out  to  be  the 

parents  of ,  an  honest  couple  come  to  decay 

• — whom  this  seasonable  supply  had,  in  all  prob- 
ability, saved  from  mendicancy  ;  and  that  this 
young  stork,  at  the  expense  of  his  own  good 
name,  had  all  this  while  been  only  feeding  the 
old  birds  !  The  governors  on  this  occasion,  much 
to  their  honor,  voted  a  present  relief  to  the  fam- 
ily   of ,  and   presented   him    with   a  silver 

medal.  The  lesson  w^hich  the  steward  read  upon 
RASH  JUDGMENT,  on  the  occasion  of  publicly  de- 
livering the    medal,  to ,    I  believe   would 

not  be  lost  upon  his  auditory.       I  had  left   school 

then,   but    I   well  remember .      He  was    a 

tall,  shambling  youth,  with  a  cast  in  his  eye,  not 
at  all  calculated  to  conciliate  hostile  prejudices. 
I  have  since  seen  him  carrying  a  baker's  basket. 
I  think  I  heard  he  did  not  do  quite  so  well  by 
himself  as  he  had  done  by  the  old  folks. 

I  was  a  hypochondriac  lad,  and  the  sight  of  a 
boy  in  fetters,  upon  the  day  of  my  first  putting 
on    the  blue   clothes,    was   not    exactly   fitted  to 


32  iBsea^s  of  BKa. 

assuage  the  natural  terrors  of  initiation.  I  was 
of  tender  years,  barely  turned  of  seven,  and  had 
only  read  of  such  things  in  books  or  seen  them 
but  in  dreams.  I  was  told  he  had  run  away. 
This  was  the  punishment  for  the  first  offence. 
As  a  novice  I  was  soon  after  taken  to  see  the 
dungeons.  These  were  little,  square,  Bedlam 
cells,  where  a  boy  could  just  lie  at  his  length 
upon  straw  and  a  blanket — a  mattress,  I  think,  was 
afterwards  substituted — with  a  peep  of  light,  let 
in  askance  from  a  prison  oritice  at  top,  barely 
enough  to  read  by.  Here  the  poor  boy  was 
locked  in  by  himself  all  day,  without  sight  of  any 
but  the  porter,  who  brought  him  his  bread  and 
water — who  might  not  speak  to  him  ; — or  of  the 
beadle,  who  came  twice  a  week  to  call  him  out  to 
receive  his  periodical  chastisement,  which  was 
almost  welco;ne,  because  it  separated  him  for  a 
brief  interval  from  solitude  ; — and  here  he  was  shut 
up  by  himself  of  nights,  out  of  the  reach  of  any 
sound,  to  suffer  whatever  horrors  the  weak  nerves 
and  superstition  incident  to  his  time  of  life  might 
subject  him  to.*  This  was  the  penalty  for  the 
second  otfence.  Wouldst  thou  like,  reader,  to  see 
what  became  of  him  in  the  next  degree } 

The  culprit,  who  had  been  a  third  time  an  offend- 
er, and  whose  expulsion  was  at  this  time  deemed 
irreversible,  was  brought  forth,  as  at  some  solemn 
auto  da/e,  arrayed  in  uncouth  and  most  appalling 

*  One  or  two  instances  of  lunacy,  or  attempted  suicide, 
accordingly,  at  length  convinced  the  governors  of  the  impol- 
icy of  this  part  of  the  sentence  ;  and  the  midnight  torture  to 
the  spirits  was  dispensed  with.  This  fancy  of  dungeons  for 
children  was  a  sprout  of  Howard's  brain  ;  for  which  (saving 
the  reverence  due  to  Holy  Paul)  methinks  I  could  willingly 
spit  upon  his  statue. 


Cbrbt's  1b06p(tal.  33 

attire — all  trace  of  his  late  *'watchet  weeds" 
carefully  effaced,  he  was  exposed  in  a  jacket  re- 
sembling those  which  London  lamp-lighters  for- 
merly delighted  in,  with  a  cap  of  the  same.  The 
effect  of  this  divestiture  was  such  as  the  ingenious 
devisors  of  it  could  have  anticipated.  With  his 
pale  and  frighted  features,  it  was  as  if  some  of 
those  disfigurements  in  Dante  had  seized  upon 
him.  In  this  disguisement  he  was  brought  into 
the  hall  {L.'s/avori/e  s/a/eroom),  where  awaited 
him  the  whole  number  of  his  school-fellows,  whose 
joint  lessons  and  sports  he  was  thenceforth  to 
share  no  more  ;  the  awful  presence  of  the  steward, 
to  be  seen  for  the  last  time  ;  of  the  executioner 
beadle,  clad  in  his  state  robe  for  the  occasion  ; 
and  of  two  faces  more,  of  direr  import,  because 
never  but  in  these  extremities  visible.  These 
were  governors,  two  of  whom,  by  choice  or  char- 
ter, were  always  accustomed  to  officiate  at  these 
Ultima  Siipplicia  ;  not  to  mitigate  (so  at  least  we 
understood  it),  but  to  enforce  the  uttermost  stripe. 
Old  Bamber  Gascoigne  and  Peter  Aubert,  1  re- 
member, were  colleagues  on  one  occasion,  when 
the  beadle  turning  rather  pale,  a  glass  of  brandy 
was  ordered  to  prepare  him  for  the  mysteries. 
The  scourging  was,  after  the  old  Roman  fashion, 
long  and  stately.  The  lictor  accompanied  the 
criminal  quite  round  the  hall.  We  were  generally 
too  faint  with  attending  to  the  previous  disgusting 
circumstances  to  make  accurate  report  with  our 
eyes  of  the  degree  of  corporal  suffering  inflicted. 
Report,  of  course,  gave  out  the  back  knotty  and 
livid.  After  scourging,  he  was  made  over  in  his 
San  Be7iito  to  his  friends,  if  he  had  any  (but  com- 
monly such  poor  runagates  were  friendless),  or 

3 


34  BssaisB  of  jeiia. 

to  his  parish  officer,  who,  to  enhance  the  effect  of 
the  scene,  had  his  station  allotted  to  him  on  the 
outside  of  the  hall  gate. 

These  solemn  pageantries  were  not  played  off 
so  often  as  to  spoil  the  general  mirth  of  the  com- 
munity. We  had  plenty  of  exercise  and  recreation 
after  school  hours  ;  and  for  myself,  I  must  confess 
that  I  was  never  happier  than  in  them.  The 
Upper  and  the  Lower  Grammar  Schools  were  held 
in  the  same  room  ;  and  an  imaginary  line  only 
divided  their  bounds.  Their  character  was  as 
different  as  that  of  the  inhabitants  on  the  two 
sides  of  the  Pyrenees.  The  Rev.  James  Boyer 
was  the  Upper  Master ;  but  the  Rev.  INIatthew 
Field  presided  over  that  portion  of  the  apartment 
of  which  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  a  member. 
We  lived  a  life  as  careless  as  birds.  We  talked 
and  did  just  what  we  pleased,  and  nobody  mo- 
lested us.  We  carried  an  accidence,  or  a  grammar, 
for  form  ;  but  for  any  trouble  it  gave  us,  we  might 
take  two  years  in  getting  through  the  verbs  depo- 
nent, and  another  two  in  forgetting  all  that  we 
had  learned  about  them.  There  was  now  and 
then  the  formality  of  saying  a  lesson,  but  if  you 
had  not  learned  it,  a  brush  across  the  shoulders 
(just  enough  to  disturb  a  fly)  was  the  sole  remon- 
strance. Field  never  used  the  rod  ;  and  in  truth 
he  wielded  the  cane  with  no  great  good-will — 
holding  it  "like  a  dancer."  It  looked  in  his 
hands  rather  like  an  emblem,  than  an  instrument 
of  authority ;  and  an  emblem,  too,  he  was 
ashamed  of.  He  was  a  good  easy  man,  that  did 
not  care  to  ruffle  his  own  peace,  nor  perhaps  set 
any  great  consideration  upon  the  value  of  juvenile 
t^me.     He  carn.e  among  us,  now  and  then,    but 


Cbrtst's  Ibospftal,  35 

often  stayed  away  whole  days  from  us  ;  and  when 
he  came,  it  made  no  difference  to  us — he  had  his 
private  room  to  retire  to,  the  short  time  he  stayed, 
to  be  out  of  the  sound  of  our  noise.  Our  mirth 
and  uproar  went  on.  We  had  classics  of  our  own, 
without  being;  beholden  to  "insolent  Greece  or 
haughty  Rome,"  that  passed  current  among  us — 
*' Peter  Wilkins  " — "The  adventures  of  the  Hon. 
Captain  Robert  Boyle" — "The  Fortunate  Blue 
Coat  Boy " — and  the  like.  Or  we  cultivated  a 
turn  for  mechanic  and  scientilic  operations,  mak- 
ing little  sun-dials  of  paper,  or  weaving  those  in- 
genious parentheses  CciWed  ca/-crad/es  ;  or  making 
dry  peas  to  dance  upon  the  end  of  a  tin  pipe  ;  or 
studying  the  art  military  over  that  laudable  game, 
"  French  and  English,"  and  a  hundred  other  such 
devices  to  pass  away  the  time — mixing  the  useful 
with  the  agreeable — as  would  have  made  the  souls 
of  Rousseau  and  John  Locke  chuckle  to  have  seen 
us. 

Matthew  Field  belonged  to  that  class  of  modest 
divines  who  affect  to  mix  in  equal  proportion  the 
gentleman,  the  scholar,  and  the  Christian  ;  but,  I 
know  not  how,  the  first  ingredient  is  generally 
found  to  be  the  predominating  dose  in  the  com- 
position. He  was  engaged  in  gay  parties,  or  with 
his  courtly  bow  at  some  episcopal  levee,  when  he 
should  have  been  attending  upon  us.  He  had  for 
many  years  the  classical  charge  of  a  hundred 
children,  during  the  four  or  five  first  years  of  their 
education  ;  and  his  very  highest  form  seldom  pro- 
ceeded further  than  two  or  three  of  the  introduc- 
tory fables  of  Phaedrus.  How  things  were  suf- 
fered to  go  on  thus,  I  cannot  guess.  Boyer,  who 
was   the  proper  person  to  have  remedied  these 


36  Bssa^s  ct  JBlia, 

abuses,  always  affected,  perhaps  felt,  a  delicacy 
in  interfering  in  a  province  not  strictly  his  own, 
I  have  not  been  without  my  suspicions,  that  he 
was  not  altogether  displeased  at  the  contrast  we 
presented  to  his  end  of  the  school.  We  were  a 
sort  of  Helots  to  his  young  Spartans.  He  would 
sometimes,  with  ironic  deference,  send  to  borrow 
arodofthe  Under  IMaster,  and  then,  with  Sardonic 
grin,  observe  to  one  of  his  upper  boys  "how  neat 
and  fresh  the  twigs  looked."  While  his  pale  stu- 
dents were  battering  their  brains  over  Xenophon 
and  Plato,  with  a  silence  as  deep  as  that  enjoined 
by  the  Samite,  we  were  enjoying  ourselves  at  our 
ease  in  our  little  Goshen.  We  saw  a  little  into  the 
secrets  of  his  discipline,  and  the  prospect  did  but 
the  more  reconcile  us  to  our  lot.  His  thunders 
rolled  innocuous  for  us  ;  his  storms  came  near, 
but  never  touched  us  ;  contrary  to  Gideon's 
miracle,  while  all  around  were  drenched,  our 
fleece  was  dry.*  His  boys  turned  out  the  better 
scholars ;  we,  I  suspect,  have  the  advantage  in 
temper.  His  pupils  cannot  speak  of  him  without 
something  of  terror  allaying  their  gratitude  ;  the 
remembrance  of  Field  comes  back  v/ith  all  the 
soothing  images  of  indolence,  and  summer  slum- 
bers, and  work  like  play,  and  innocent  idleness, 
and  Elysian  exemptions,  and  life  itself  a  "play- 
ing holiday." 

Though  sufficiently  removed  from  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  Boyer,  we  were  near  enough  (as  I  have 
said)  to  understand  a  little  of  his  system.  We 
occasionally  heard  sounds  of  the  Ululanies,  and 
caught  glances  of  Tartarus.  B.  was  a  rabid 
pedant  His  Eng^lish  style  was  crampt  to  barbar- 
*  Cowley. 


=    Cbnst'0  IboepftaU  37 

ism.  His  Easter  anthems  (for  his  duty  obliged 
him  to  those  periodical  flights)  were  grating  as 
scrannel  pipes.*  He  would  laugh,  ay,  and  heart- 
ily, but  then  it  must  be  at  Flaccus'  quibble  about 
Rex — or  at  the  tristis  severitas  in  vuliu,  or  inspicere 
in  patinas,  of  Terence — thin  jests,  which  at  their 
first  broaching  could  hardly  have  had  vis  enough 
to  move  a  Roman  muscle.  He  had  two  wigs,  both 
pedantic,  but  of  different  omen.  The  one  serene, 
smiling,  fresh  powdered,  betokening  a  mild  day. 
The  other,  an  old,  discolored,  unkempt,  angry  caxon, 
denoting  frequent  and  bloody  execution.  Woe  to 
the  school,  when  he  made  his  morning  appearance 
in  his  passy,  or  passionate  wig.  No  comet  ex- 
pounded surer.  J.  B.  had  a  heavy  hand.  I  have 
known  him  double  his  knotty  fist  at  a  poor  trem- 
bling child  (the  maternal  milk  hardly  dry  upon  its 
lips)  with  a  "Sirrah,  do  you  presume  to  set  your 
wits  at  me  1  " — Nothing  was  more  common  than  to 
see  him  make  a  headlong  entry  into  the  school- 
room, from  his  inner  recess,  or  library,  and,  with 
turbulent  eye,  singling  out  a  lad,  roar  out,  "Od's 
my  life,  sirrah,  "(his  favorite  adjuration)  "  I  have  a 
great  mind  to  whip  you," — then,  with  as  sudden  a 
retracting  impulse,  fling  back  into  his  lair — and, 
after  a   cooling  lapse   of  some    minutes   (during 

*  In  this  and  every  thing  B.  was  the  antipodes  of  his  coad- 
jutor. While  the  former  was  digging  his  brains  for  crude 
antliems,  worth  a  pig-nut,  F.  would  be  recreating  his  gentle- 
manly fancy  in  the  more  flowery  walks  of  the  Muses.  A  little 
dramatic  effusion  of  his,  under  the  name  of  Vertumnus  and 
Pomona,  is  not  yet  forgotten  by  the  chroniclers  of  that  sort  of 
literature.  It  was  accepted  by  Garrick,  but  the  town  did  not 
give  it  their  sanction.  B.  used  to  say  of  it,  in  a  way  of  half- 
compliment,  half -irony,  that  it  was  too  classical  for  representor 
iioii. 


38  Bssa^s  of  BUa. 

which  all  but  the  culprit  had  totally  forgotten  the 
context)  drive  headlong  out  again,  piecing  out  his 
imperfect  sense,  as  if  it  had  been  some  Devil's 
Litany,  with  the  expletory  yell,  —  ''and  I  will 
too/" — In  his  gentler  moods,  when  the  rahidus 
furor  was  assuaged,  he  had  resort  to  an  ingenious 
method,  peculiar,  for  what  I  have  heard,  to  him- 
self, of  whipping  the  boy,  and  reading  the  Debates, 
at  the  same  time  ;  a  paragraph,  and  a  lash  be- 
tween ;  which  in  those  times,  when  parliamentary 
oratory  was  most  at  a  height  and  flourishing  in 
these  realms,  was  not  calculated  to  impress  the 
patient  with  a  veneration  for  the  diffuser  graces 
of  rhetoric. 

Once,  and  but  once,  the  uplifted  rod  was  known 
to  fall  ineffectual  from  his  hand — when  droll, 
squinting  W. — having  been  caught  putting  the 
inside  of  the  masters  desk  to  a  use  for  which  the 
architect  had  clearly  not  designed  it,  to  justify 
himself,  with  great  simplicity  averred  that  he  did 
not  know  that  the  thi?ig  had  been  forewarned.  This 
exquisite  irrecognition  of  any  law  antecedent  to 
the  oral  or  declaratory,  struck  so  irresistibly  upon 
the  fancy  of  all  who  heard  it  (the  pedagogue  him- 
self not  excepted) — that  remission  was  unavoid- 
able. 

L.  has  given  credit  to  B. 's  great  merits  as  an 
instructor.  Coleridge,  in  his  literary  life,  has  pro- 
nounced a  more  intelligible  and  ample  encomium 
on  them.  The  author  of  the  Country  Spectator 
doubts  not  to  compare  him  with  the  ablest  teach- 
ers of  antiquity.  Perhaps  we  cannot  dismiss  him 
better  than  with  the  pious  ejaculation  of  C. ,  when 
he  heard  that  his  old  master  was  on  his  death-bed  : 
"Poor  J.  B. ! — may  all  his  faults  be  forgiven  ;  and 


Cbxi6Vs  Ibospital.  39 

may  he  be  wafted  to  bliss  by  little  cherub  boys 
all  head  and  wings,  with  no  hottoms  to  reproach 
his  sublunary  infirmities. " 

Under  him  were  many  good  and  sound  scholars 
bred.  First  Grecian  of  my  time  was  Lancelot 
Pepys  Stevens,  kindest  of  boys  and  men,  since 
Co-grammar-master  (and  inseparable  companion) 
with  Dr.  T e. 

What  an  edifying  spectacle  did  this  brace  of 
friends  present  to  those  who  remembered  the  anti- 
socialities  of  their  predecessors  !  You  never  met 
the  one  by  chance  in  the  street  without  a  wonder, 
which  was  quickly  dissipated  by  the  almost  im- 
mediate sub-appearance  of  the  other.  Generally 
arm-in-arm,  these  kindly  coadjutors  lightened  for 
each  other  the  toilsome  duties  of  their  profession, 
and  when,  in  advanced  age,  one  found  it  conven- 
ient to  retire,  the  other  was  not  long  in  discover- 
ing that  it  suited  him  to  lay  down  the  fasces  also. 
Oh,  it  is  pleasant,  as  it  is  rare,  to  find  the  same 
arm  linked  in  yours  at  forty,  which  at  thirteen 
helped  it  to  turn  over  the  "Cicero  De  Amicitia," 
or  some  tale  of  Antique  Friendship,  which  the 
young  heart  even  then  was  burning  to  anticipate  ! 
Co-Grecian  with  S.  w^as  Th. ,  who  has  since  exe- 
cuted with  ability  various  diplomatic  functions  at 
the  Northern  courts.  Th.  was  a  tall,  dark,  satur- 
nine youth,  sparing  of  speech,  with  raven  locks. 
Thomas  Fanshaw  Middleton  followed  him  (now 
Bishop  of  Calcutta),  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman  in 
his  teens.  He  has  the  reputation  of  an  excellent 
critic  ;  and  is  author  (besides  the  Country  Spec- 
tator) of  a  Treatise  on  the  Greek  Article,  against 
Sharpe.  M.  is  said  to  bear  his  mitre  high  in 
India,  where  the  regni  novitas  (I  dare  say)  suffi- 


40  ^6553^5  ot  BUa. 

ciently  justifies  the  bearing.  A  humility  quite  as 
primitive  as  that  of  Jewel  or  Hooker  might  not  be 
exactly  fitted  to  impress  the  minds  of  those  Anglo- 
Asiatic  diocesans  with  a  reverence  for  home  in- 
stitutions, and  the  church  which  those  fathers 
watered.  The  manners  of  M.  at  school,  though 
firm,  were  mild  and  unassuming.  Next  to  I\I.  (if 
not  senior  to  him)  was  Richards,  author  of  the 
Aboriginal  Britons,  the  most  spirited  of  the  Oxford 
prize  poems  ;  a  pale,  studious  Grecian.  Then  fol- 
lowed poor  S.,  ill-fated  M. !  of  these  the  IMuse  is 
silent. 

Finding  some  of  Edward's  race 

Unhappy,  pass  their  annals  by. 

Come  back  into  memory,  like  as  thou  wert  in 
the  dayspringof  thy  fancies,  with  hope  like  a  fiery 
column  before  thee — the  dark  pillar  not  yet 
turned — Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge — Logician,  Met- 
aphysician, Bard!  How  have  I  seen  the  casual 
passer  through  the  Cloisters  stand  still,  entranced 
with  admiration  (while  he  weighed  the  dispropor- 
tion between  the  speech  and  the  garh  of  the  young 
Mirandula),  to  hear  thee  unfold,  in  thy  deep  in- 
tonations, the  mysteries  of  Jamblichus,  or  Plo- 
tinus  (for  even  in  those  years  thou  waxedst  not 
pale  at  such  philosophic  draughts),  or  reciting 
Homer  in  his  Greek,  or  Pindar — while  the  walls 
of  the  old  Gray  Friars  re-echoed  to  the  accents  of 
the  inspired  charity-boy /  IMany  were  the  "wit- 
combats  '■  (to  dally  awhile  with  the  words  of  old 
Fuller)  between  him  and  C.  V.  Le  G.,  w^hich  two 
I  behold  like  a  Spanish  great  galleon,  and  an 
English  man-of-war;  Master  Coleridge,  like  the 
former,  was  built  far  higher  in  learning,  solid,  but 
slow  in  his  performances.     C.  V.  Le  G.,  with  the 


QM6V6  Doepftal.  41 

Eng-lish  man-of-war,  lesser  in  bulk  but  lighter  in 
sailing,  could  turn  with  all  tides,  tack  about,  and 
take  advantage  of  all  w^inds,  by  the  quickness  of 
his  wit  and  invention. 

Nor  shalt  thou,  their  compeer,  be  quickly  for- 
gotten, Allen,  with  the  cordial  smile  and  still 
more  cordial  laugh,  with  which  thou  were  wont 
to  make  the  old  Cloisters  shake,  in  thy  cognition 
of  some  poignant  jest  of  theirs  ;  or  the  anticipa- 
tion of  some  more  material  and,  peradventure, 
practical  one  of  thine  own.  Extinct  are  those 
smiles,  with  that  beautiful  countenance,  with 
which  (for  thou  wert  the  Nireus  forinosus  of  the 
school)  in  the  days  of  thy  maturer  waggery,  thou 
didst  disarm  the  wrath  of  infuriated  town-damsel, 
who,  incensed  by  provoking  pinch,  turning 
tigress-like  round,  suddenly  converted  by  thy 
angel-look,    exchanged   the   half-formed    terrible 

''hi ,"      for   a   gentler   greeting — ''bless    thy 

handsome  face  I " 

Next  follow  two,  who  ought  to  be  now  alive, 
and  the  friends  of  Elia — the  junior  Le  G.  and  F., 
w^ho,  impelled,  the  former  by  a  roving  temper, 
the  latter  by  too  quick  a  sense  of  neglect — ill 
capable  of  enduring  the  slights  poor  Sizars  are 
sometimes  subject  to  in  our  seats  of  learning — • 
exchanged  their  Alma  Mater  for  the  camp  :  per- 
ishing, one  by  climate,  and  one  on  the  plains  of 
Salamanca: — Le  G. ,  sanguine,  volatile,  sweet- 
natured  ;  F. ,  dogged,  faithful,  anticipative  of  in- 
sult, warm-hearted,  with  something  of  the  old 
Roman  height  about  him. 

Fine,  frank-hearted  Fr.,  the  present  master  of 
Hertford,  with  Marmaduke  T.,  mildest  of  Mission- 
aries— and  both  my  good  friends  still — close  the 
catalogue  of  Grecians  in  my  time. 


THE  TWO  RACES  OF  MEN. 


The  human  species,  according  to  the  best  the- 
ory I  can  form  of  it,  is  composed  of  two  distinct 
races,  the  men  who  boj'row,  afid  the  men  who  lend. 
To  these  two  original  diversities  may  be  reduced 
all  those  impertinent  classifications  of  Gothic  and 
Celtic  tribes,  white  men,  black  men,  red  men. 
All  the  dwellers  upon  earth,  "Parthians,  and 
Medes,  and  Elamites,"  flock  hither  and  do  natu- 
rally fall  in  with  one  or  other  of  these  primary  dis- 
tinctions. The  infinite  superiority  of  the  former, 
which  I  choose  to  designate  as  the  great  race,  is 
discernible  in  their  figure,  port,  and  a  certain 
instinctive  sovereignty.  The  latter  are  born  de- 
graded. "  He  shall  serve  his  brethren."  There 
is  something  in  the  air  of  one  of  this  cast,  lean 
and  suspicious  ;  contrasting  with  the  open,  trust- 
ing, generous  manners  of  the  other. 

Observe  who  have  been  the  greatest  borrowers 
of  all  ages — Alcibiades — Falstaff — Sir  Richard 
Steele — our  late  incomparable  Brinsley — what  a 
family  likeness  in  all  four  ! 

What  a  careless,  even  deportment  hath  your 
borrower  !  what  rosy  gills  !  what  a  beautiful  reli- 
ance on  Providence  doth  he  manifest, — taking  no 
more  thought  than  lilies  !  What  contempt  for 
money, — accounting  it  (yours  and  mine  espe- 
42 


Zbc  Zwo  IRaces  ot  /iRen.  43 

daily)  no  better  than  dross  !  What  a  liberal  con- 
founding of  those  pedantic  distinctions  of  meuni 
£ir\(ltuu7?i/  or  rather,  what  a  noble  simplification 
of  language  (beyond  Tooke),  resolving  these  sup- 
posed opposites  into  one  clear,  intelligible  pro- 
noun adjective  ! — What  near  approaches  doth  he 
make  to  the  primitive  comminiity , — to  the  extent 
of  one  half  of  the  principle  at  least. 

He  is  the  true  taxer  who  "  calleth  all  the  world 
up  to  be  taxed  ";  and  the  distance  is  as  vast  be- 
tween him  and  one  of  us,  as  subsisted  between 
the  Augustan  Majesty  and  the  poorest  obolary  Jew 
that  paid  it  tribute-pittance  at  Jerusalem  ! — His 
exactions,  too,  have  such  a  cheerful,  voluntary 
air  !  So  far  removed  from  your  sour  parochial  or 
state  gatherers, — those  inkhorn  varlets,  who  carry 
their  want  of  welcome  in  their  faces  !  He  Com- 
eth to  you  with  a  smile,  and  troubleth  you  with 
no  receipt  ;  confining  himself  to  no  set  season. 
Every  day  is  his  Candlemas,  or  his  Feast  of  Holy 
Michael.  He  applieth  the  leiie  iormenhnn  of  a 
pleasant  look  to  your  purse, — which  to  that  gen- 
tle warmth  expands  her  silken  leaves,  as  naturally 
as  the  cloak  of  the  traveller,  for  which  sun  and 
wind  contended  !  He  is  the  true  Propontic  which 
never  ebbeth  !  The  sea  which  taketh  handsomely 
at  each  man's  hand.  In  vain  the  victim,  whom 
he  delighteth  to  honor,  struggles  with  destiny  ; 
he  is  in  the  net.  Lend  therefore  cheerfully,  O 
man  ordained  to  lend — that  thou  lose  not  in  the 
end,  with  thy  worldly  penny,  the  reversion  prom- 
ised. Combine  not  preposterously  in  thine  own 
person  the  penalties  of  Lazarus  and  of  Dives  ! — 
but,  when  thou  seest  the  proper  authority  coming, 
meet  it  smilingly,  as  it  were  half-way.     Come,  a 


44  ;6s0as5  ot  Blia, 

handsome  sacrifice  !     See  how  light  he  makes  of 
it !     Strain  not  courtesies  witli  a  noble  enemy. 

Reflections  like  the  foregoing  were  forced  upon 
my  mind  by  the  death  of  my  old  friend,  Ralph 
Bigod,  Esq.,  who  parted  this  life  on  Wednesday 
evening;  dying,  as  he  had  lived,  without  much 
trouble.  He  boasted  himself  a  descendant  from 
mighty  ancestors  of  that  name,  who  heretofore 
held  ducal  dignities  in  this  realm.  In  his  actions 
and  sentiments  he  belied  not  the  stock  to  which 
he  pretended.  Early  in  life  he  found  himself 
invested  with  ample  revenues  :  which,  with  that 
noble  disinterestedness  which  I  have  noticed  as 
inherent  in  men  of  the  great  race,  he  took  almost 
immediate  measures  entirely  to  dissipate  and 
bring  to  nothing  ;  for  there  is  something  revolting 
in  the  idea  of  a  king  holding  a  private  purse  ;  and 
the  thoughts  of  Bigod  were  all,  regal.  Thus  fur- 
nished by  the  very  act  of  disfurnishment ;  getting 
rid  of  the  cumbersome  luggage  of  riches,  more 
apt  (as  one  sings) 

To  slacken  virtue,  and  abate  her  edge, 

Than  prompt  her  to  do  aught  may  merit  praise, 

he  set  forth,  like  some  Alexander,  upon  his  great 
enterprise,  "borrowing  and  to  borrow  !  " 

In  his  periegesis,  or  triumphant  progress 
throughout  this  island,  it  has  been  calculated  that 
he  laid  a  tithe  part  of  the  inhabitants  under  con- 
tribution. I  reject  this  estimate  as  greatly  exag- 
gerated ; — but  having  had  the  honor  of  accom- 
panying my  friend  divers  times,  in  his  perambula- 
tions about  this  vast  city,  I  own  I  Vv^as  greatly 
struck  at  first  with  the  prodigious  number  of  faces 
we  met,  who  claimed  a  sort  of  respectful  acquaint- 


Zbc  ^wo  TRaces  of  /Iftcn.  45 

ance  with  us.  He  was  one  day  so  obliging  as  to 
explain  the  phenomenon.  It  seems,  these  were 
his  tributaries  ;  feeders  of  his  exchequer  ;  gentle- 
men, his  good  friends  (as  he  was  pleased  to 
express  himself),  to  whom  he  had  occasionally 
been  beholden  for  a  loan.  Their  multitudes  did 
no  way  disconcert  him.  He  rather  took  a  pride 
in  numbering  them ;  and,  with  Comus,  seemed 
pleased  to  be   "stocked  with  so  fair  a  herd." 

With  such  sources,  it  was  a  wonder  how  he 
contrived  to  keep  his  treasury  always  empty.  He 
did  it  by  force  of  an  aphorism,  which  he  had  often 
in  his  mouth,  that  ''money  kept  longer  than  three 
days'  stinks."  So  he  made  use  of  it  while  it  was 
fresh.  A  good  part  he  drank  away  (for  he  was  an 
excellent  toss-pot)  :  some  he  gave  away,  the  rest 
he  threw  away,  literally  tossing  and  hurling  it 
violently  from  him — as  boys  do  burrs,  or  as  if  it 
had  been  infectious, — into  ponds,  or  ditches,  or 
deep  holes,  inscrutable  cavities  of  the  earth  ;  or 
he  would  bury  it  (where  he  would  never  seek  it 
again)  by  a  river's  side  under  some  bank,  which 
(he  would  facetiously  observe)  paid  no  interest — 
but  out  away  from  him  it  must  go  peremptorily, 
as  Hagar's  offspring  into  the  wilderness,  while  it 
was  sweet.  He  never  missed  it.  The  streams 
were  perennial  which  fed  his  fisc.  When  new 
supplies  became  necessary,  the  first  person  that 
had  the  felicity  to  fall  in  with  him,  friend  or 
stranger,  was  sure  to  contribute  to  the  deficiency. 
For  Bigod  had  an  undeniable  way  with  him.  He 
had  a  cheerful,  open  exterior,  a  quick  jovial  eye, 
a  bald  forehead,  just  touched  with  gray  {catia 
fides).  He  anticipated  no  excuse,  and  found 
none.     And,  waiving  for  a  while  my  theory  as  to 


46  jessa^s  of  jElia. 

the  great  race,  I  would  put  it  to  the  most  untheo- 
rizing  reader,  who  may  at  times  have  disposable 
coin  in  his  pocket,  whether  it  is  not  more  repug- 
nant to  the  kindliness  of  his  nature  to  refuse  such 
a  one  as  I  am  describing,  than  to  say  no  to  a  poor 
petitionary  rogue  (your  bastard  borrower),  who, 
by  his  mumping  visnomy,  tells  you,  that  he  ex- 
pects nothing  better  ;  and,  therefore,  whose  pre- 
conceived notions  and  expectations  you  do  in 
reality  so  much  less  shock  in  the  refusal. 

When  I  think  of  this  man,  his  fiery  glow  of 
heart ;  his  swell  of  feeling  ;  how  magnificent, 
how  ideal  he  was  ;  how  great  at  the  midnight 
hour  ;  and  when  I  compare  with  him  the  com- 
panions with  whom  1  have  associated  since,  I 
grudge  the  saving  of  a  few  idle  ducats,  and  think 
that  I  am  fallen  into  the  society  of  lenders,  and 
little  men. 

To  one  like  Elia,  whose  treasures  are  rather 
cased  in  leather  covers  than  closed  in  iron  coffers, 
there  is  a  class  of  alienators  more  formidable  than 
that  which  I  have  touched  upon  ;  I  mean  your 
borrowers  of  books — those  mutilators  of  collec- 
tions, spoilers  of  the  symmetry  of  shelves,  and 
creators  of  odd  volumes.  There  is  Comberbatch, 
matchless  in  his  depredations  ! 

That  foul  gap  in  the  bottom  shelf  facing  you, 
like  a  great  eye-tooth  knocked  out — (you  are 
now  with  me  in  my  little  back  study  in  Blooms- 
bury,  reader) — with  the  huge  Switzer-like  tomes 
on  each  side  (like  the  Guild-hall  giants,  in  their 
reformed  posture,  guardiant  of  nothing)  once 
held  the  tallest  of  my  folios,  Opera  BonaventurcB, 
choice  and  massy  divinity,  to  which  its  two 
supporters   (school  divinity  also,   but  of  a  lesser 


Zbc  ^wo  IRaces  of  /Iften.  47 

calibre — Bellarmine,  and  Holy  Thomas)  showed 
but  as  dwarfs — itself  an  Ascapart ! — /ha/  Com- 
berbatch  abstracted  upon  the  faith  of  a  theory 
he  holds,  which  is  more  easy,  I  confess,  for  me 
to  suffer  by  than  to  refute,  namely,  that  ''the 
title  to  property  in  a  book  (my  Bonaventure,  for 
instance)  is  in  exact  ratio  to  the  claimant's  powers 
of  understanding  and  appreciating  the  same." 
Should  he  go  on  acting  upon  this  theory,  which 
of  our  shelves  is  safe  ? 

The  slight  vacuum  in  the  left-hand  case — two 
shelves  from  the  ceiling — scarcely  distinguishable 
but  by  the  quick  eye  of  a  loser — was  whilom 
the  commodious  resting-place  of  Brown  on  Urn 
Burial.  C.  will  hardly  allege  that  he  knows  more 
about  that  treatise  than  I  do,  who  introduced  it  to 
him,  and  was,  indeed,  the  first  (of  the  moderns) 
to  discover  its  beauties — but  so  have  I  known  a 
foolish  lover  to  praise  his  mistress  in  the  presence 
of  a  rival  more  qualified  to  carry  her  off  than  him- 
self. Just  below,  Dodsley's  dramas  want  their 
fourth  volume,  where  Vittoria  Corombona  is.  The 
remaining  nine  are  as  distasteful  as  Priam's  refuse 
sons,  when  the  Fates  borrowed  Hector.  Here 
stood  the  "Anatomy  of  Melancholy,"  in  sober 
state.  There  loitered  the  "Complete  Angler"; 
quiet  as  in  life,  by  some  stream  side.  In  yonder 
nook,  "John  Buncle,"  a  widower-volume,  with 
"eyes  closed,"  mourns  his  ravished  mate. 

One  justice  I  must  do  my  friend,  that  if  he 
sometimes,  like  the  sea,  sweeps  away  a  treasure, 
at  another  time,  sea-like,  he  throws  up  as  rich  an 
equivalent  to  match  it.  I  have  a  small  under- 
collection  of  this  nature  (my  friend's  gatherings  in 
his  various  calls)   picked  up,  he  has  forgotten  at 


48  Bssai^s  ot  :611a. 

what  odd  places,  and  deposited  with  as  little  mem- 
ory at  mine.  I  take  in  these  orphans,  the  twice 
deserted.  These  proselytes  of  the  gate  are  wel- 
come as  the  true  Hebrews.  There  they  stand  in 
conjunction  ;  natives,  and  naturalized.  The  lat- 
ter seem  as  little  disposed  to  inquire  out  their  true 
lineage  as  I  am.  I  charge  no  warehouse-room 
for  these  deodens,  nor  shall  ever  put  myself  to 
the  ungentlemanly  trouble  of  advertising  a  sale 
of  them  to  pay  expenses. 

To  lose  a  volume  to  C.  carries  some  sense  and 
meaning  in  it.  You  are  sure  that  he  will  make 
one  hearty  meal  of  your  viands,  if  he  can  give  no 
account  of  the  platter  after  it.  But  what  moved 
thee,  wayward,  spiteful  K. ,  to  be  so  importunate 
to  carry  off  with  thee,  in  spite  of  tears  and  adjura- 
tions to  thee  to  forbear,  the  "Letters"  of  that 
princely  woman,  the  thrice  noble  Margaret  New- 
castle ? — knowing  at  the  time,  and  knowing  that  I 
knew  also,  thou  most  assuredly  wouldst  never  turn 
over  one  leaf  of  the  illustrious  folio  : — what  but 
the  mere  spirit  of  contradiction,  and  childish  love 
of  getting  the  better  of  thy  friend  ?  Then,  worst 
cut  of  all  !  to  transport  it  with  thee  to  the  Galilean 
land — 

Unworthy  land  to  harbor  such  a  sweetness, 
A  virtue  in  which  all  ennobling  thoughts  dwelt, 
Pure  thoughts,  kind  thoughts,  high  thoughts,  her  sex's    won- 
der ! 

— hadst  thou  not  thy  play-books,  and  books  of 
jests  and  fancies,  about  thee,  to  keep  thee  merry, 
even  as  thou  keepest  all  companies  with  thy  quips 
and  mirthful  tales  ?  Child  of  the  Green-room,  it 
was  unkindly  done  of  thee.  Thy  wife,  too,  that 
part-French,  better-part  Englishwoman  ! — that  she 


XTbe  Zwo  IRaces  ot  ^en, 


49 


could  fix  upon  no  other  treatise  to  bear  away,  in 
kindly  token  of  remembering  us,  than  the  works 
of  Fulke  Greville,  Lord  Brook — of  which  no 
Frenchman,  nor  woman  of  France,  Italy,  or  Eng- 
land, was  ever  by  nature  constituted  to  compre- 
hend a  title  !  Was  there  not  Zimmerman  on  Soli- 
tude ? 

Reader,  if  haply  thou  art  blessed  with  a  mod- 
erate collection,  be  shy  of  showing  it ;  or  if  thy 
heart  overfloweth  to  lend  them,  lend  thy  books  ; 
but  let  it  be  to  such  a  one.  as  S.  T.  C.  — he  will 
return  them  (generally  anticipating  the  time  ap- 
pointed) with  usury  ;  enriched  with  annotations 
tripling  their  value.  I  have  had  experience. 
Many  are  these  precious  IVISS,  of  his — (in  matter 
oftentimes,  and  almost  in  quantity  not  unfre- 
quently,  vying  with  the  originals)  in  no  very 
clerkly  hand — legible  in  my  Daniel ;  in  old 
Burton  ;  in  Sir  Thomas  Browne  ;  and  those  ab- 
struser  cogitations  of  the  Greville,  now,  alas  ! 
wandering  in  Pagan  lands.  I  counsel  thee,  shut 
not  thy  heart,  nor  thy  library,  against  S.  T.  C. 
4 


NEW  YEAR'S  EVE. 


Every  man  hath  two  birthdays  :  two  days,  at 
least,  in  every  year,  which  set  him  upon  revolving 
the  lapse  of  time  as  it  affects  his  mortal  duration. 
The  one  is  that  which  in  an  especial  manner  he 
termeth  his.  In  the  gradual  desuetude  of  old 
observances,  this  custom  of  solemnizing  our 
proper  birthday  hath  nearly  passed  away,  or  is 
left  to  children,  who  reflect  nothing  at  all  about 
the  matter,  nor  understand  anything  in  it  beyond 
cake  and  orange.  But  the  birth  of  a  New  Year 
is  of  an  interest  too  wide  to  be  pretermitted  by 
king  or  cobbler.  No  one  ever  regarded  the  first  of 
January  with  indifference.  It  is  that  from  which 
all  date  their  time,  and  count  upon  -what  is  left. 
It  is  the  nativity  of  our  common  Adam. 

Of  all  sound  of  all  bells — ( bells,  the  music  nighest 
bordering  upon  heaven) — most  solemn  and  touch- 
ing is  the  peal  which  rings  out  the  Old  Year.  I 
never  hear  it  without  a  gathering-up  of  my  mind 
to  a  concentration  of  all  the  images  that  have 
been  diffused  over  the  past  twelve-month  ;  all  I 
have  done  or  suffered,  performed  or  neglected — • 
in  that  regretted  time.  I  begin  to  know  its  worth, 
as  when  a  person  dies.  It  takes  a  personal  color  ; 
nor  was  it  a  poetical  flight  in  a  contemporary, 
when  he  exclaimed, 

I  saw  the  skirts  of  a  departing  Year. 
5° 


IFlew  fear's  Bve.  51 

It  is  no  more  than  what  in  sober  sadness  every- 
one of  us  seems  to  be  conscious  of,  in  that  awful 
leave-taking.  I  am  sure  I  felt  it,  and  all  felt  it  with 
me,  last  night  ;  though  some  of  my  companions 
affected  rather  to  manifest  an  exhilaration  at  the 
birth  of  the  coming  year,  than  any  very  tender 
regrets  for  the  decease  of  its  predecessor.  But  I 
am   none  of  those  who — 

Welcome  the  coming,  speed  the  parting  guest. 

I  am  naturally,  beforehand,  shy  of  novelties; 
new  books,  new  faces,  new  years — from  some 
mental  twist  which  makes  it  difficult  in  me  to 
face  the  prospective.  I  have  almost  ceased  to 
hope  ;  and  am  sanguine  only  in  the  prospects 
of  other  (former)  years.  I  plunge  into  foregone 
visions  and  conclusions.  I  encounter  pellmell 
with  past  disappointments.  I  am  armor-proof 
against  old  discouragements.  I  forgive,  or  over- 
come in  fancy,  old  adversaries.  I  play  over 
again /br  love,  as  the  gamesters  phrase  it,  games, 
for  which  I  once  paid  so  dear.  I  would  scarce  now 
have  any  of  those  untoward  accidents  and  events 
of  my  life  reversed.  I  would  no  more  alter  them 
than  the  incidents  of  some  well-contrived  novel. 
IMethinks  it  is  better  that  I  should  have  pined 
away  seven  of  my  goldenest  years,  when  I  was 
thrall  to   the  fair  hair,   and  fairer  eyes,   of  Alice 

W n,  than  that  so  passionate  a  love-adventure 

should  be  lost.  It  was  better  that  our  family 
should  have  missed  that  legacy,  which  old  Dorrell 
cheated  us  of,  than  that  I  should  have  at  this 
moment  two  thousand  pounds  in  banco,  and  be 
without  the  idea  of  that  specious  old  rogue. 


52  B00ai20  of  JElfa. 

In  a  degree  beneath  manhood,  it  is  my  infirmity 
to  look  back  upon  those  early  days.  Do  I  advance 
a  paradox,  when  I  say,  that,  skipping  over  the 
intervention  of  forty  years,  a  man  may  have  leave 
to  love  himself,  without  the  imputation  of  self- 
love  ? 

If  I  know  aught  of  myself,  no  one  whose  mind 
is  introspective — and  mine  is  painfully  so — can 
have  a  less  respect  for  his  present  identity,  than 
I  have  for  the  man  Elia.  I  know  him  to  be  light, 
and  vain,  and  humorsome  ;  a  notorious  .  .  .  ; 
addicted  to  ...  ;  averse  from  counsel,  neither 
taking  it  nor  offering  it ; —  .  .  .  besides  ;  a  stam- 
mering buffoon  ;  what  you  will ;  lay  it  on,  and 
spare  not  ;  I  subscribe  to  it  all,  and  much  more 
than  thou  canst  be  willing  to  lay  at  his  door — but 
for  the  child  Elia,  that  "  other  me,"  there  in  the 
background — I  must  take  leave  to  cherish  the  re- 
membrance of  that  young  master — with  as  little 
reference,  I  protest,  to  this  stupid  changeling  of 
five-and-forty,  as  if  it  had  been  a  child  of  some 
other  house,  and  not  of  my  parents.  I  can  cry  over 
its  patient  smallpox  at  five,  and  rougher  medica- 
ments. I  can  lay  its  poor  fevered  head  upon  the 
sick  pillow  at  Christ's,  and  wake  with  it  in  surprise 
at  the  gentle  posture  of  maternal  tenderness  hang- 
ing over  it,  that  unknown  had  watched  its  sleep. 
I  know  how  it  shrank  from  any  the  least  color  of 
falsehood.  God  help  thee,  Elia,  how  art  thou 
changed  !  Thou  art  sophisticated.  I  know  how 
honest,  how  courageous  (for  a  weakling)  it  was 
— how  religious,  how  imaginative,  how  hopeful  ! 
From  what  haA^e  I  not  fallen,  if  the  child  I  remem- 
ber was  indeed  myself, — and  not  some  dissem- 
bling guardian,  presenting  a  false  identity,  to  give 


the  rule  to  my  unpractised  steps,  and  regulate  the 
tone  of  my  moral  being  ! 

That  I  am  fond  of  indulging,  beyond  a  hope 
of  sympathy,  in  such  retrospection,  may  be  the 
symptom  of  some  sickly  idiosyncrasy.  Or  is  it 
owing  to  another  cause  :  simply,  that  being  with- 
out wife  or  family,  I  have  not  learned  to  project 
myself  enough  out  of  myself  ;  and  having  no  off- 
spring of  my  own  to  dally  with,  I  turn  back  upon 
memory,  and  adopt  my  own  early  idea,  as  my 
heir  and  favorite  ?  If  these  speculations  seem 
fantastical  to  thee,  reader — (a  busy  man,  per- 
chance), if  I  tread  out  of  the  way  of  thy  sympathy, 
and  am  singularly  conceited  only,  I  retire,  impen- 
etrable to  ridicule,  under  the  phantom-cloud  of 
Elia. 

The  elders,  with  whom  I  was  brought  up,  were 
of  a  character  not  likely  to  let  slip  the  sacred  ob- 
servance of  any  old  institution  ;  and  the  ringing  out 
of  the  Old  Year  was  kept  by  them  with  circum- 
stances of  peculiar  ceremony.  In  those  days  the 
sound  of  those  midnight  chimes,  though  it  seemed 
to  raise  hilarity  in  all  around  me,  never  failed  to 
bring  a  train  of  pensive  imagery  into  my  fancy. 
Yet  I  then  scarce  conceived  what  it  meant,  or 
thought  of  it  as  a  reckoning  that  concerned  me. 
Not  childhood  alone,  but  the  young  man  till 
thirty,  never  feels  practically  that  he  is  mortal. 
He  knows  it  indeed,  and,  if  need  were,  he  could 
preach  a  homily  on  the  fragility  of  life  ;  but  he 
brings  it  not  home  to  himself,  any  more  than  in  a 
hot  June  we  can  appropriate  to  our  imagination  the 
freezing  days  of  December.  But  now,  shall  I  con- 
fess a  truth  ? — I  feel  these  audits  but  too  power- 
fully.    I  being  to  count  the  probabilities  of  my 


54  lEsBa^s  of  IBM. 

duration,  and  to  g^rudge  at  the  expenditure  of 
moments  and  shortest  periods,  like  misers'  far- 
things. In  proportion  as  the  years  both  lessen 
and  shorten,  I  set  more  count  upon  their  periods, 
and  would  fain  lay  my  ineffectual  finger  upon  the 
spoke  of  the  great  wheel.  I  am  not  content  to 
pass  away  "like  a  weaver's  shuttle."  Those 
metaphors  solace  me  not,  nor  sweeten  the  unpal- 
atable draught  of  mortality.  I  care  not  to  be  car- 
ried with  the  tide,  that  smoothly  bears  human  life 
to  eternity  ;  and  reluct  at  the  inevitable  course  of 
destiny.  I  am  in  love  with  this  green  earth  ;  the 
face  of  town  and  country  ;  the  unspeakable  rural 
solitudes,  and  the  sweet  security  of  streets.  I 
would  set  up  my  tabernacle  here.  I  am  content 
to  stand  still  at  the  age  to  which  I  am  arrived  ;  I, 
and  my  friends  ;  to  be  no  younger,  no  richer,  no 
handsomer.  I  do  not  want  to  be  weaned  by  age  ; 
or  drop,  like  mellow  fruit,  as  they  say,  into  the 
grave.  Any  alteration,  on  this  earth  of  mine,  in 
diet  or  in  lodging,  puzzles  and  discomposes  me. 
INIy  household-gods  plant  a  terrible  fixed  foot,  and 
are  not  rooted  up  without  blood.  They  do  not 
willingly  seek  Lavinian  shores.  A  new  state  of 
beino^  staQfo-ers  me. 

Sun,  and  sky,  and  breeze,  and  solitary  walks, 
and  summer  holidays,  and  thegreenness  of  fields, 
and  the  delicious  juices  of  meats  and  fishes,  and 
society,  and  the  cheerful  glass,  and  candlelight, 
and  fireside  conversations,  and  innocent  vanities, 
and  jests,  andz>'c;zy  i/se//— do  these  things  go  out 
with  life  ? 

Can  a  ghost  laugh,  or  shake  his  gaunt  sides, 
when  you  are  pleasant  with  him  ? 

And    you,    my  midnight  darlings,    my  Folios  ! 


mew  l^ear^s  lEvc.  55 

must  I  part  with  the  intense  delight  of  having  you 
(huge  armfuls)  in  my  embraces?  Must  knowl- 
edge come  to  me,  if  it  come  at  all,  by  some 
awkward  experiment  of  intuition,  and  no  longer 
by  this  familiar  process  of  reading  ? 

Shall  I  enjoy  friendships  there,  wanting  the 
smiling  indications  which  point  me  to  them  here, 
— the  recognizable  face — the  "sweet  assurance 
of  a  look?  " 

In  winter  this  intolerable  disinclination  to  dying 
• — to  give  it  its  mildest  name — does  more  especially 
haunt  and  beset  me.  In  a  genial  August  noon, 
beneath  a  sweltering  sky,  death  is  almost  problem- 
atic. At  those  times  do  such  poor  snakes  as 
myself  enjoy  an  immortality.  Then  we  expand 
and  bourgeon.  Then  we  are  as  strong  again, 
as  valiant  again,  as  wise  again,  and  a  great  deal 
taller.  The  blast  that  nips  and  shrinks  me, 
puts  me  in  thoughts  of  death.  All  things  allied 
to  the  insubstantial,  wait  upon  that  master- 
feeling  ;  cold,  numbness,  dreams,  perplexity ; 
moonlight  itself,  with  its  shadowy  and  spectral 
appearances, — that  cold  ghost  of  the  sun,  or 
Phoebus'  sickly  sister,  like  that  innutritious  one 
denounced  in  the  Canticles  : — I  am  none  of  her 
minions — I  hold  with  the  Persian. 

Whatsoever  thwarts,  or  puts  me  out  of  my  way, 
brings  death  into  my  mind.  All  partial  evils,  like 
humors,  run  into  that  capital  plague-sore.  I  have 
heard  some  profess  an  indifference  to  life.  Such 
hail  the  end  of  their  existence  as  a  port  of  refuge  ; 
and  speak  of  the  grave  as  of  some  soft  arms,  in 
which  they  may  slumber  as  on  a  pillow.  Some 
have  wooed  death — but  out  upon  thee,  I  say,  thou 
foul,  ugly   phantom  !     I  detest,  abhor,   execrate, 


56  J666ai26  of  JElla, 

and  (with  Friar  John)  give  thee  to  six-score  thou- 
sand devils  as  in  no  instance  to  be  excused  or 
tolerated,  but  shunned  as  an  universal  viper ;  to 
be  branded,  proscribed,  and  spoken  evil  of!  In 
no  way  can  I  be  brought  to  digest  thee,  thou 
thin,  melancholy  Privation,  or  more  frightful  and 
confounding  Positive! 

Those  antidotes,  prescribed  against  the  fear  of 
thee,  are  altogether  frigid  and  insulting,  like  hy- 
self.  For  what  satisfaction  hath  a  man,  that  he 
shall  "lie  down  with  kings  and  emperors  in 
death,"  who  in  his  lifetime  never  greatly  coveted 
the  society  of  such  bedfellows  ? — or,  forsooth,  that 
**so   shall    the   fairest    face    appear"? — why,    to 

comfort  me,    must   Alice   W n  be  a  goblin  ? 

IMore  than  all,  I  conceive  disgust  at  those  im- 
pertinent and  misbecoming  familiarities,  inscribed 
upon  your  ordinary  tombstones.  Every  dead 
man  must  take  upon  himself  to  be  lecturing  me 
with  his  odious  truism,  that  "Such  as  he  now  is 
I  must  shortly  be."  Not  so  shortly,  friend,  per- 
haps, as  thou  imaginest.  In  the  meantime,  I  am 
alive.  I  move  about.  I  am  worth  twenty  of 
thee.  Know  thy  betters  !  Thy  New  Years'  days 
are  past.  I  survive,  a  jolly  candidate  for  1821. 
Another  cup  of  wine — and  while  that  turncoat 
bell,  that  just  now  mournfully  chanted  the 
obsequies  of  1820  departed,  with  changed  notes 
lustily  rings  in  a  successor,  let  us  attune  to  its 
peal  the  song  made  on  a  like  occasion  by  hearty, 
cheerful  Mr.  Cotton. 

THE  NEW  YEAR. 

Hark,  the  cock  crows,  and  yon  bright  star 
Tells  us,  the  day  himself's  not  far; 


•fflew  lJ?ear*s  ;£vc»  57 

And  see  where,  breaking  from  the  night, 
He  gilds  the  western  hills  with  light. 
With  him  old  Janus  doth  appear, 
Peeping  into  the  future  year, 
With  such  a  look  as  seems  to  say, 
The  prospect  is  not  good  that  way. 
Thus  do  we  rise  ill  sights  to  see, 
And  'gainst  ourselves  to  prophesy  ; 
When  the  prophetic  fear  of  things 
A  more  tormenting  mischief  brings, 
More  full  of  soul-tormenting  gall 
Than  direst  mischiefs  can  befall. 
But  stay !  but  stay  !  methinks  my  sight 
Better  inform 'd  by  clearer  light, 
Discerns  sereneness  in  that  brow, 
That  all  contracted  seem'd  but  now. 
His  revers'd  face  may  show  distaste, 
And  frown  upon  the  ills  are  past ; 
But  that  which  this  way  looks  is  clear, 
And  smiles  upon  the  New-born  Year. 
He  looks  too  from  a  place  so  high, 
The  Year  lies  open  to  his  eye  ; 
And  all  the  moments  open  are 
To  the  exact  discoverer. 
Yet  more  and  more  he  smiles  upon 
The  happy  revolution. 
Why  should  we  then  suspect  or  fear 
The  influences  of  a  year  ? 
So  smiles  upon  us  the  first  morn. 
And  speaks  us  good  so  soon  as  born. 
Plague  on  't !  the  last  was  ill  enough, 
This  cannot  but  make  better  proof  ; 
Or,  at  the  worst,  as  we  brush'd  through 
The  last,  why  so  we  may  this  too  ; 
And  then  the  next  in  reason  shou'd 
Be  superexcellently  good : 
For  the  worst  ills  (we  daily  see) 
Have  no  more  perpetuity 
Than  the  best  fortunes  that  do  fall; 
Which  also  bring  us  wherewithal 
Longer  their  being  to  support. 
Than  those  do  of  the  other  sort  ; 
And  who  has  one  good  year  in  three, 
And  yet  repines  at  destiny, 


58  lEssa^s  ot  Blia. 

Appears  ungrateful  in  the  case, 

And  merits  not  the  good  he  has. 

Then  let  us  welcome  the  New  Guestt 

With  lusty  brimmers  of  the  best; 

Mirth  always  should  Good  P'ortune  meet. 

And  renders  e'en  Disaster  sweet; 

And  though  the  Princess  turn  her  back. 

Let  us  but  line  ourselves  with  sack, 

We  better  shall  by  far  hold  out, 

Till  the  next  Year  she  face  about. 

How  say  you,  reader?  Do  not  these  verses 
smack  of  the  rough  magnanimity  of  the  old  Eng- 
lish vein  ?  Do  they  not  fortify  like  a  cordial,  en- 
larging the  heart,  and  productive  of  sweet  blood 
and  generous  spirits  in  the  concoction  !  Where 
be  those  puling  fears  of  death,  just  now  expressed 
or  affected?  Passed  like  a  cloud — absorbed  in 
the  purging  sunlight  of  clear  poetry — clean 
washed  away  by  a  wave  of  genuine  Helicon, 
your  only  Spa  for  these  hypochonderies.  And 
now  another  cup  of  the  generous  !  and  a  merry 
New  Year,  and  many  of  them  to  you  all,  my 
masters  1 


MRS.  BATTLE'S  OPINIONS  ON  WHIST. 


''A  CLEAR  fire,  a  clean  hea.rth,  and  the  rigor  of 
the  game."  This  was  the  celebrated  zuisJi  of  old 
Sarah  Battle  (now  with  God),  who,  next  to  her 
devotions,  loved  a  good  game  of  whist.  She  was 
none  of  your  lukewarm  gamesters,  your  half-and- 
half  players,  who  have  no  objection  to  take  a 
hand,  if  you  want  one  to  make  up  a  rubber  ;  who 
aftirm  that  they  have  no  pleasure  in  winning  ; 
that  they  like  to  win  one  game  and  lose  another ; 
that  they  can  while  away  an  hour  very  agreeably 
at  a  card-table,  but  are  indifferent  whether  they 
play  or  no  ;  and  will  desire  an  adversary,  who 
has  slipped  a  wrong  card,  to  take  it  up  and  play 
another.  These  insufferable  trifles  are  the  curse 
of  a  table.  One  of  these  flies  will  spoil  a  whole 
pot.  Of  such  it  may  be  said  that  they  do  not 
play  at  cards,  but  only  play  at  playing  at  them. 

Sarah  Battle  was  none  of  that  breed.  She  de- 
tested them,  as  1  do,  from  her  heart  and  soul,  and 
would  not,  save  upon  a  striking  emergency,  will- 
ingly seat  herself  at  the  same  table  with  them. 
She  loved  a  thorough-paced  partner,  a  determined 
enemy.  She  took,  and  gave,  no  concessions. 
She  hated  favors.  She  never  made  a  revoke,  nor 
even  passed  it  over  in  her  adversary  without  ex- 
acting the  utmost  forfeiture.     She  fought  a  good 

59 


6o  Bssa^s  ot  Blia* 

fight — cut  and  thrust.  She  held  her  good  sword 
(her  cards)  "  hke  a  dancer."  She  sat  boU  upright, 
and  neither  showed  you  her  cards,  nor  desired  to 
see  yours.  All  people  have  their  blind  side — 
their  superstitions  ;  and  I  have  heard  her  declare, 
under  the  rose,  that  hearts  was  her  favorite  suit. 

I  never  in  my  life — and  I  knew  Sarah  Battle 
many  of  the  best  years  of  it — saw  her  take  out  her 
snuff-box  when  it  was  her  turn  to  play,  or  snuff  a 
candle  in  the  middle  of  a  game,  or  ring  for  a  serv- 
ant till  it  was  fairly  over.  She  never  introduced 
or  connived  at  miscellaneous  conversation  during 
its  progress.  As  she  emphatically  observed, 
"  cards  were  cards  "  ;  and  if  I  ever  saw  unmingled 
distaste  in  her  fine  last-century  countenance,  it 
was  at  the  airs  of  a  young  gentleman  of  a  literary 
turn,  who  had  been  with  difficulty  persuaded  to 
take  a  hand,  and  who,  in  his  excess  of  candor, 
declared  that  he  thought  there  was  no  harm  in 
unbending  the  mind  nov/  and  then,  after  serious 
studies,  in  recreations  of  that  kind  !  She  could 
not  bear  to  have  her  noble  occupation,  to  which 
she  wound  up  her  faculties,  considered  in  that 
light.  It  was  her  business,  her  duty,  the  thing  she 
came  into  the  world  to  do, — and  she  did  it.  She 
unbent  her  mind  afterwards  over  a  book. 

Pope  was  her  favorite  author;  his  ''Rape  of 
the  Lock  "  her  favorite  work.  She  once  did  me 
the  honor  to  play  over  with  me  (with  the  cards) 
his  celebrated  game  of  Ombre  in  that  poem  ;  and 
to  explain  to  me  how  far  it  agreed  with,  and  in 
v.^hat  points  it  would  be  found  to  differ  from,  tra- 
drille.  Her  illustrations  were  apposite  and  poign- 
ant ;  and  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  sending  the 
substance  of  them  to  Mr.  Bowles  ;  but  I  suppose 


Ifbvs,  ^Battle's  ©pinions  on  mblst.         6i 

they  came  too  late  to  be  inserted  among  his  in- 
genious notes  upon  that  author. 

Quadrille,  she  has  often  told  me,  was  her  first 
love  ;  but  whist  had  engaged  her  maturer  esteem. 
The  former,  she  said,  was  showy  and  specious, 
and  likely  to  allure  young  persons.  The  uncer- 
tainty and  quick  shifting  of  partners — a  thing 
which  the  constancy  of  whist  abhors — the  dazzling 
supremacy  and  regal  investiture  of  Spadille — 
absurd,  as  she  justly  observed,  in  the  pure  aristoc- 
racy of  whist,  where  his  crown  and  garter  give 
him  no  proper  power  above  his  brother  nobility 
of  the  Aces  ; — the  giddy  vanity  so  taking  to  the 
inexperienced,  of  playing  alone  ;  above  all,  the 
overpowering  attractions  of  a  Sa?ts  Prendre  Vole, 
— to  the  triumph  of  which  there  is  certainly  noth- 
ing parallel  or  approaching,  in  the  contingencies 
of  whist ; — all  these,  she  would  say,  make  quadrille 
a  game  of  captivation  to  the  young  and  enthusias- 
tic. But  whist  was  the  soldier  game — that  was 
her  word.  It  was  a  long  meal ;  not  like  quadrille, 
a  feast  of  snatches.  One  or  two  rubbers  might 
coextend  in  duration  with  an  evening.  They  gave 
time  to  form  rooted  friendships,  to  cultivate  steady 
enmities.  She  despised  the  chance-started,  capri- 
cious, and  ever-fluctuating  alliances  of  the  other. 
The  skirmishes  of  quadrille,  she  would  say,  re- 
minded her  of  the  petty  ephemeral  embroilments 
of  the  little  Italian  states,  depicted  by  Machiavel, 
perpetually  changing  postures  and  connection  ; 
bitter  foes  to-day,  sugared  darlings  to-morrow  ; 
kissing  and  scratching  in  a  breath  ; — but  the  wars 
of  whist  v/ere  comparable  to  the  long,  steady, 
deep-rooted,  national  antipathies  of  the  great 
French  and  English  nations. 


62  lessn^B  ot  Blia. 

A  grave  simplicity  was  what  she  chiefly  admired 
in  her  favorite  game.  There  was  nothing  silly  in 
it,  like  the  nob  in  cribbage — nothing  superfluous. 
"So /lushes — that  most  irrational  of  all  pleas  that  a 
reasonable  being  can  set  up  ; — that  any  one  should 
claim  four  by  virtue  of  holding  cards  of  the  same 
mark  and  color,  without  reference  to  the  playing 
of  the  game,  or  the  individual  worth  or  preten- 
sions of  the  cards  themselves  !  She  held  this  to 
be  a  solecism  ;  as  pitiful  an  ambition  in  cards  as 
alliteration  is  in  authorship.  She  despised  super- 
ficiality, and  looked  deeper  than  the  colors  of 
things.  Suits  were  soldiers,  she  would  say,  and 
must  have  a  uniformity  of  array  to  distinguish 
them  ;  but  what  should  we  say  to  a  foolish  squire, 
who  should  claim  a  merit  from  dressing  up  his 
tenantry  in  red  jackets,  that  never  were  to  be 
marshalled — never  to  take  the  field.?  She  even 
wished  that  whist  were  more  simple  than  it  is  ; 
and,  in  my  mind,  would  have  stripped  it  of  some 
appendages,  which  in  the  state  of  human  frailty, 
may  bevenialiy,  and  even  commendably,  allowed 
of.  She  saw  no  reason  for  the  deciding  of  the 
trump  by  the  turn  of  the  card.  Why  not  one  suit 
always  trumps  ?  Why  two  colors  when  the  mark 
of  the  suits  would  have  sufficiently  distinguished 
them  without  it  ? 

"But  the  eye,  my  dear  Madam,  is  agreeably 
refreshed  with  the  variety.  Man  is  not  a  creature 
of  pure  reason — he  must  have  his  senses  delight- 
fully appealed  to.  We  see  it  in  Roman  Catholic 
countries,  where  the  music  and  the  paintings 
draw  in  many  to  worship,  whom  your  Quaker 
spirit  of  unsensualizing  would  have  kept  out. 
You  yourself  have  a  pretty  collection  of  paintings, 


^rs.  :fiSattle'6  ©pinions  on  "QClblst.         6^ 

— but  confess  to  me,  whether,  walking-  in  your 
gallery  at  Sandham,  among  those  clear  Vandykes, 
or  among  the  Paul  Potters  in  the  anteroom,  you 
ever  felt  your  bosom  glow  with  an  elegant  delight, 
at  all  comparable  to  /ha/  you  have  it  in  your 
power  to  experience  most  evenings  over  a  well- 
arranged  assortment  of  the  court-cards  ? — the 
pretty  antic  habits,  like  heralds  in  a  procession — 
the  gay  triumph-assuring  scarlets — the  contrast- 
ing deadly-killing  sables — the  *  hoary  majesty  of 
spades  ' — Pam  in  all  his  glory  ! 

"All  these  might  be  dispensed  with  ;  and  with 
their  naked  names  upon  the  drab  pasteboard, 
the  game  might  go  on  very  well,  pictureless. 
But  the  heau/y  of  cards  would  be  extinguished 
forever.  Stripped  of  all  that  is  imaginative  in 
them,  they  must  degenerate  into  mere  gambling. 
Imagine  a  dull  deal  board,  or  drum-head,  to 
spread  them  on,  instead  of  that  nice  verdant  car- 
pet (next  to  Nature's),  fittest  arena  for  those 
courtly  combatants  to  play  their  gallant  jousts 
and  tourneys  in  !  Exchange  those  delicately- 
turned  ivory  markers — (work  of  Chinese  artists, 
unconscious  of  their  symbol,  or  as  profanely 
slighting  their  true  application  as  the  arrantest 
Ephesian  journeyman  that  turned  out  those  little 
shrines  for  the  goddess) — exchange  them  for  little 
bits  of  leather  (our  ancestors'  money),  or  chalk 
and  a  slate  !  " 

The  old  lady,  with  a  smile,  confessed  the 
soundness  of  my  logic  ;  and  to  her  approbation 
of  my  arguments  on  her  favorite  topic  that  even- 
ing, 1  have  always  fancied  myself  indebted  for 
the  legacy  of  a  curious  cribbage-board,  made  of 
the   finest   Sienna   marble,    which   her   maternal 


64  B66ai25  ot  :Elia. 

uncle  (old  Walter  Plumer,  whom  I  have  elsewhere 
celebrated),  brought  with  him  from  Florence  ; — 
this,  and  a  trifle  of  five  hundred  pounds,  came  to 
me  at  her  death. 

The  former  bequest  (which  I  do  not  least  value) 
I  have  kept  with  religious  care  ;  though  she  her- 
self, to  confess  a  truth,  was  never  greatly  taken 
with  cribbage.  It  was  an  essentially  vulgar 
game,  I  have  heard  her  say, — disputing  with  her 
uncle,  who  was  very  partial  to  it.  She  could 
never  heartily  bring  her  mouth  to  pronounce 
''Go'' — or  "  Jliai's  a  go."  She  called  it  an  un- 
grammatical  game.  The  pegging  teased  her.  I 
once  knew  her  to  forfeit  a  rubber  (a  five-dollar 
stake),  because  she  would  not  take  advantage  of 
the  turn-up  knave,  which  would  have  given  it  her, 
but  which  she  must  have  claimed  by  the  disgrace- 
ful tenure  of  declaring  "  hvo  for  his  heels."  There 
is  something  extremely  genteel  in  this  sort  of 
self-denial.  Sarah  Battle  was  a  gentlewoman 
born. 

Piquet  she  held  the  best  game  at  the  cards  for 
two  persons,  though  she  would  ridicule  the  pedan- 
try of  the  terms, — such  as  pique — repique — the 
capot,  — they  savored  (she  thought)  of  affectation. 
But  games  for  two,  or  even  three,  she  never 
greatly  cared  for.  She  loved  the  quadrate,  or 
square.  She  would  argue  thus  :  Cards  are  war- 
fare ;  the  ends  are  gain,  with  glory.  But  cards 
are  war,  in  disguise  of  a  sport ;  when  single  ad- 
versaries encounter,  the  ends  proposed  are  too 
palpable.  By  themselves,  it  is  too  close  a  fight  ; 
with  spectators,  it  is  not  much  bettered.  No 
looker-on  can  be  interested,  except  for  a  bet,  and 
then  it  is  a  mere  affair  of  money  ;  he  cares  not  for 


flbrs.  JBattle's  ©pinions  on  'QClbist.         65 

your  luck  sympathetically,  or  for  your  play.  Three 
are  still  worse  ;  a  mere  naked  war  of  every  man 
against  every  man,  as  in  cribbage,  without  league 
or  alliance  ;  or  a  rotation  of  petty  and  contradic- 
tory interests,  a  succession  of  heartless  leagues, 
and  not  much  more  hearty  infractions  of  them,  as 
in  tradrille.  But  in  square  games  {she  meant 
whist),  all  that  is  possible  to  be  attained  in  card- 
playing  is  accomplished.  There  are  the  incen- 
tives of  profit  with  honor,  common  to  every 
species, — though  the  latter  can  be  but  very  imper- 
fectly enjoyed  in  those  other  games,  where  the 
spectator  is  only  feebly  a  participator.  But  the 
parties  in  w^hist  are  spectators  and  principals  too. 
They  are  a  theatre  to  themselves,  and  a  looker- 
on  is  not  wanted.  He  is  rather  worse  than  noth- 
ing, and  an  impertinence.  Whist  abhors  neutral- 
ity, or  interests  beyond  its  sphere.  You  glory  in 
some  surprising  stroke  of  skill  or  fortune,  not 
because  a  cold — or  even  an  interested — bystander 
witnesses  it,  but  because  your /^czr/zz^/- sympathizes 
in  the  contingency.  You  can  win  for  two.  You 
triumph  for  two.  Two  are  exalted.  Two  again 
are  mortified ;  which  divides  their  disgrace,  as 
the  conjunction  doubles  (by  taking  off  the  invidi- 
ousness)  your  glories.  Two  losing  to  two  are 
better  reconciled,  than  one  to  one  in  that  close 
butchery.  The  hostile  feeling  is  weakened  by 
multiplying  the  channels.  War  has  become  a 
civil  game.  By  such  reasonings  as  these  the  old 
lady  was  accustomed  to  defend  her  favorite  pas- 
time. 

No  inducement  could  ever  prevail  upon  her  to 
play  at  any  game,  where  chance  entered  into  the 
composition,  /o?'   nothing.     Chance,   she    woul^ 
5 


66  J£33n^6  of  lElfa. 

argue, — and  here  again,  admire  the  subtlety  of 
her  conclusion, — chance  is  nothing,  but  where 
something  else  depends  upon  it.  It  is  obvious 
that  cannot  be  glojy.  What  rational  cause  of  ex- 
ultation could  it  give  to  a  man  to  turn  up  size  ace 
a  hundred  times  together  by  himself?  or  before 
spectators,  where  no  stake  was  depending  ? 
Make  a  lottery  of  a  hundred  thousand  tickets 
with  but  one  fortunate  number,  and  what  possi- 
ble principle  of  our  nature,  except  stupid  won- 
derment, could  it  gratify  to  gain  that  number 
as  many  times  successively,  without  a  prize? 
Therefore  she  disliked  the  mixture  of  chance  in 
backgammon,  where  it  was  not  played  for 
money.  She  called  it  foolish,  and  those  people 
idiots  who  were  taken  with  a  lucky  hit  under 
such  circumstances.  Games  of  pure  skill  were 
as  little  to  her  fancy.  Played  for  a  stake,  they 
were  a  mere  system  of  overreaching.  Played  for 
glory,  they  were  a  mere  setting  of  one  man's  wit, 
— his  memory,  or  combination  faculty  rather — 
against  another's  !  like  a  mock  engagement  at  a 
review,  bloodless  and  profitless.  She  could  not 
conceive  a  game  wanting  the  spritely  infusion  of 
chance,  the  handsome  excuses  of  good  fortune. 
Two  people  playing  at  chess  in  a  corner  of  a 
room,  whilst  whist  was  stirring  in  the  centre, 
would  inspire  her  v/ith  insufferable  horror  and 
ennui.  Those  well-cut  similitudes  of  Castles,  and 
Knights,  the  imagery  of  the  board,  she  would 
argue,  (and  I  think  in  this  case  justly)  were 
entirely  misplaced  and  senseless.  Those  hard 
head-contests  can  in  no  instance  ally  with  the 
fancy.  They  reject  form  and  color.  A  pencil 
and  dry  slate  (she  used  to  say)  were  the  proper 
arena  for  such  combatants. 


mv3,  :ffiattle'5  ©ptn(on6  on  mbisU         6j 

To  those  puny  objectors  against  cards,  as  nurt- 
uring the  bad  passions,  she  would  retort,  that 
man  is  a  gaming  animal.  He  must  be  always 
trying  to  get  the  better  in  something  or  other  ; — 
that  this  passion  can  scarcely  be  more  safely  ex- 
pended than  upon  a  game  at  cards ;  that  cards 
are  a  temporary  illusion  ;  in  truth,  a  mere  drama  ; 
for  we  do  but  p/ay  at  being  mightily  concerned, 
where  a  few  idle  shillings  are  at  stake,  yet,  during 
the  illusion,  we  are  as  mightily  concerned  as 
those  whose  stake  is  crowns  and  kingdoms. 
They  are  a  sort  of  dream-fighting  ;  much  ado  ; 
great  battling  and  little  bloodshed  ;  mighty 
means  for  disproportioned  ends  ;  quite  as  divert- 
ing, and  a  great  deal  more  innoxious,  than  many 
of  those  more  serious  games  of  life  which  men 
play,  without  esteeming  them  to  be  such. 

With  great  deference  to  the  old  lady's  judg- 
ment in  these  matters,  I  think  I  have  experienced 
some  moments  in  my  life,  when  playing  at  cards 
for  nothing  has  even  been  agreeable.  When  I 
am  in  sickness,  or  not  in  the  best  spirits,  I  some- 
times call  for  the  cards,  and  play  a  game  at  piquet 
for  love  with  my  cousin  Bridget — Bridget  Elia. 

I  grant  there  is  something  sneaking  in  it ;  but 
with  a  toothache,  or  a  sprained  ankle, — when  you 
are  subdued  and  humble, — you  are  glad  to  put  up 
with  an  inferior  spring  of  action. 

There  is  such  a  thing  in  nature,  I  am  con- 
vinced, as  sick  ivhist. 

I  grant  it  is  not  the  highest  style  of  man — I  dep- 
recate the  manes  of  Sarah  Battle — she  lives  not, 
alas  !  to  whom  I  should  apologize. 

At  such  times,  those  terms,  which  my  old 
friend  objected  to,  come  in  as  something  admis- 


68  jesaa^s  ot  Blia. 

sible.  I  love  to  get  a  tierce  or  a  quatorze,  though 
they  mean  nothing.  I  am  subdued  to  an  inferior 
interest.     Those  shadows  of  winning  amuse  me. 

That  last  game  I  had  with  my  sweet  cousin  (I 
capotted  her) — (dare  I  tell  thee,  how  foolish  I 
am .'') — I  wished  it  might  have  lasted  forever, 
though  we  gained  nothing,  and  lost  nothing  ; 
though  it  was  a  mere  shade  of  play,  I  would  be 
content  to  go  on  in  that  idle  folly  forever.  The 
pipkin  should  be  ever  boiling,  that  was  to  pre- 
pare the  gentle  lenitive  to  my  foot,  which  Bridget 
w^as  doomed  to  apply  after  the  game  was  over  ; 
and,  as  I  do  not  much  relish  appliances,  there  it 
should  ever  bubble.  Bridget  and  I  should  be 
ever  playing. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  EARS. 


I  HAVE  no  ear. 

Mistake  me  not,  reader — nor  imagine  that  I  am 
by  nature  destitute  cf  those  exterior  twin  append- 
ages, hanging  ornaments,  and  (architecturally 
speaking)  handsome  volutes  to  the  human  capital. 
Better  my  mother  had  never  borne  me.  I  am,  I 
think,  rather  delicately  than  copiously  provided 
with  those  conduits  ;  and  I  feel  no  disposition  to 
envy  the  mule  for  his  plenty,  or  the  mole  for  her 
exactness,  in  those  ingenious  labyrinthine  inlets 
— those  indispensable  side  intelligencers. 

Neither  have  I  incurred,  or  done  any  thing  to 
incur,  with  Defoe,  that  hideous  disfigurement, 
which  constrained  him  to  draw  upon  assurance — 
to  feel  ''quite  unabashed,"  and  at  ease  upon  that 
article.  I  was  never,  I  thank  my  stars,  in  the 
pillory  ;  nor,  if  I  read  them  aright,  is  it  within 
the  compass  of  my  destiny,  that  I  ever  should 
be. 

When  therefore  I  say  that  I  have  no  ear,  you 
will  understand  me  to  mean — -for  music.  To  say 
that  this  heart  never  melted  at  the  concord  of 
sweet  sounds,  w^ould  be  a  foul  self-libel.  ''Water 
parted  from  tJie  Sea"  never  fails  to  move  it  strange- 
ly. So  does  ''In  Infancy.'*'  But  they  were  used 
to  be  sung  at  her  harpsichord   (the  old-fashioned 

69 


70  ;605ai2S  of  BUa. 

instrument  in  vogue  in  those  days)  by  a  gentle- 
woman— the  gentlest,  sure,  that  ever  merited  the 
appellation — the  sweetest — why  should  I  hesitate 
to  name  Mrs.  S.,  once  the  blooming  Fanny 
Weatheral  of  the  Temple — who  had  power  to 
thrill  the  soul  of  Elia,  small  imp  as  he  was,  even 
in  his  long  coats  ;  and  to  make  him  glow,  trem- 
ble, and  blush  with  a  passion,  that  not  faintly  in- 
dicated the  dayspring  of  that  absorbing  sentiment, 
which  was  afterwards  destined  to  overwhelm  and 
subdue  his  nature  quite,  for  Alice  W n. 

1  even  think  that  sentimentally  I  am  disposed  to 
harmony.  But  ofgankally  I  am  incapable  of  a 
tune.  I  have  been  practising  ' '  God  save  the  King" 
all  my  life  ;  whistling  and  humming  of  it  over  to 
myself  in  solitary  corners ;  and  am  not  yet 
arrived,  they  tell  me,  within  many  quavers  of 
it.  Yet  hath  the  loyalty  of  Elia  never  been  im- 
peached. 

I  am  not  without  suspicion,  that  I  have  an  un- 
developed faculty  of  music  within  me.  For 
thrumming  in  my  wild  way,  on  my  friend  A.'s 
piano,  the  other  morning,  while  he  was  engaged 
in  an  adjoining  parlor, — on  his  return  he  was 
pleased  to  say,  "he  thought  it  could  not  he  the 
maid!"  On  his  first  surprise  at  hearing  the  keys 
touched  in  somewhat  an  air}^  and  masterful  way, 
not  dreaming  of  me,  his  suspicions  had  lighted  on 
Jenny.  But  a  grace,  snatched  from  a  superior  re- 
finement, soon  convinced  him  that  some  being — 
technically  perhaps  deficient,  but  higher  informed 
from  a  principle  common  to  all  the  fine  arts — had 
swayed  the  keys  to  a  mood  which  Jenny,  with  all 
her  (less  cultivated)  enthusiasm,  could  never  have 
elicited  from  them.     I  mention  this  as  a  proof  of 


B  Cbapter  on  jBats*  71 

my  friend's  penetration,  and  not  with  any  view  of 
disparaging  Jenny. 

Scientifically  I  could  never  be  made  to  under- 
stand (yet  have  I  taken  some  pains)  what  a  note 
in  music  is  ;  or  how  one  note  should  differ  from 
another.  Much  less  in  voices  can  I  distinguish  a 
soprano  from  a  tenor.  Only  sometimes  the  thor- 
ough-bass I  contrive  to  guess  at,  from  its  being 
supereminently  harsh  and  disagreeable.  I  trem- 
ble, however,  for  my  misapplication  of  the  sim- 
plest terms  of  /ha^  which  I  disckiim.  While  I 
profess  my  ignorance,  I  scarce  know  what  to 
saj^  I  am  ignorant  of.  I  hate,  perhaps,  by  mis- 
nomers. Sosteniito  and  adagio  stand  in  a  like  rela- 
tion of  obscurity  to  me  ;  Sol,  Fa,  Mi,  Re^  is  as 
conjuring  as  Baralipton. 

It  is  hard  to  stand  alone  in  an  ao^e  like  this — 
(constituted  to  the  quick  and  critical  perception  of 
all  harmonious  combinations,  I  verily  believe, 
beyond  all  preceding  ages,  since  Jubal  stumbled 
upon  the  gamut)  to  remain,  as  it  were,  singly  un- 
impressible  to  the  magic  influences  of  an  art, 
which  is  said  to  have  such  an  especial  stroke  at 
soothing,  elevating,  and  refining  the  passions. 
Yet,  rather  than  break  the  candid  current  of  my 
confessions,  I  must  avow  to  you,  that  I  have  re- 
ceived a  great  deal  more  pain  than  pleasure  from 
this  so  cried-up  faculty. 

I  am  constitutionally  susceptible  of  noises.  A 
carpenter's  hammer,  in  a  warm  summer  noon, 
will  fret  me  into  more  than  midsummer  madness. 
But  those  unconnected,  unset  sounds  are  nothing 
to  the  measured  malice  of  music.  The  ear  is 
passive  to  those  single  strokes  ;  willingly  enduring 
stripes  while  it  hath  no  task  to  con.     To  music  it 


72  Bssa^s  ot  sua. 

cannot  be  passive.  It  will  strive — mine  at  least 
will — 'spite  of  its  inaptitude,  to  thrid  the  maze  ; 
like  an  unskilled  eye  painfully  poring  upon  hiero- 
j^lyphics.  I  have  sat  through  an  Italian  Opera, 
till,  for  sheer  pain,  and  inexplicable  anguish,  I 
have  rushed  out  into  the  noisiest  places  of  the 
crowded  streets,  to  solace  myself  with  sounds, 
which  I  was  not  obliged  to  follow,  and  get  rid  of 
the  distracting  torment  of  endless,  fruitless,  barren 
attention  !  I  take  refuge  in  the  unpretending  as- 
semblage of  honest  common-life  sounds  ; — and 
the  purgatory  of  the  Enraged  ^lusician  becomes 
my  paradise. 

I  have  sat  at  an  Oratorio  (that  profanation  of 
the  purposes  of  the  cheerful  playhouse)  watching 
the  faces  of  the  auditory  in  the  pit  (what  a  con- 
trast to  Hogarth's  Laughing  Audience  !  )  immova- 
ble, or  affecting  some  faint  emotion — till  (as  some 
have  said,  that  our  occupations  in  the  next  world 
will  be  but  a  shadow  of  what  delighted  us  in  this) 
I  have  imagined  myself  in  some  cold  Theatre  in 
Hades,  where  some  of  the  forms  of  the  earthly 
one  should  be  kept  up,  with  none  of  the  enjoy- 
ment ;  or  like  that 

Party  in  a  parlor 

All  silent,  and  all  damn'd. 


Above  all,  those  insufferable  concertos,  and 
pieces  of  music,  as  they  are  called,  do  plague  and 
embitter  my  apprehension.  Words  are  some- 
thing ;  but  to  be  exposed  to  an  endless  battery  of 
mere  sounds  ;  to  be  long  a-dying  ;  to  lie  stretched 
upon  a  rack  of  roses  ;  to  keep  up  languor  by  un- 
intermitted  effort  ;  to  pile  honey  upon  sugar,  and 


( 


B  Gbapter  on  Bars,  73 

sugar  upon  honey,  to  an  interminable  tedious 
sweetness ;  to  fill  up  sound  with  feeling,  and 
strain  ideas  to  keep  pace  with  it ;  to  gaze  on 
empty  frames,  and  be  forced  to  make  the  pictures 
for  yourself;  to  read  a  book,  all  slops,  and  be 
obliged  to  supply  the  verbal  matter ;  to  invent 
extempore  tragedies  to  answer  to  the  vague  gest- 
ures of  an  inexplicable  rambling  mime  ; — these 
are  faint  shadows  of  what  I  have  undergone  from 
a  series  of  the  ablest  executed  pieces  of  this  empty 
instrumental  music. 

I  deny  not,  that  in  the  opening  of  a  concert,  I 
have  experienced  something  vastly  lulling  and 
agreeable  ; — afterwards  followeth  the  languor  and 
the  oppression.  Like  that  disappointing  book  in 
Patmos  ;  or  like  the  comings  on  of  melancholy, 
described  by  Burton,  doth  music  make  her  first 
msinuating  approaches  :  "Most  pleasant  it  is  to 
such  as  are  melancholy  given  to  walk  alone  in 
some  solitary  grove,  betwixt  wood  and  water,  by 
some  brook  side,  and  to  meditate  upon  some  de- 
lightsome and  pleasant  subject,  which  shall  affect 
him  most,  amahilis  insania,  and  mentis  gratissimus 
error ;  a  most  incomparable  delight  to  build 
castles  in  the  air,  to  go  smiling  to  themselves, 
acting  an  infinite  variety  of  parts,  which  they 
suppose,  and  strongly  imagine  they  act,  or  that 
they  see  done.  So  delightsome  these  toys  at  first, 
they  could  spend  whole  days  and  nights  without 
sleep,  even  whole  years  in  such  contemplations, 
and  fantastical  meditations,  which  are  like  so 
many  dreams,  and  will  hardly  be  drawn  from 
them, — winding  and  unwinding  themselves  as  so 
many  clocks,  and  still  pleasing  their  humors, 
until  at  the  last  the  scene  turns  upon  a  sudden,  and 


74  iBsBtite  of  BHa. 

they  being  now  habituated  to  such  meditations 
and  soUtary  places,  can  endure  no  company,  can 
think  of  nothing  but  harsh  and  distasteful  sub- 
jects. Fear,  sorrow,  suspicion,  suhrusticus  pudor, 
discontent,  cares,  and  weariness  of  life,  surprise 
them  on  a  sudden,  and  they  can  think  of  nothing 
else  ;  continually  suspecting,  no  sooner  are  their 
eyes  open,  but  this  infernal  plague  of  melancholy 
seizeth  on  them,  and  terrifies  their  souls,  repre- 
senting some  dismal  object  to  their  minds  ;  which 
now,  by  no  means,  no  labor,  no  persuasions,  they 
can  avoid,  they  cannot  be  rid  of,  they  cannot 
resist. " 

Something  like  this  ''scene  turning'"'  I  have 
experienced  at  the  evening  parties,  at  the  house' 

of  my  good  Catholic  ixiQw^Xov ;  who,  by  the 

aid  of  a  capital  organ,  himself  the  most  finished 
of  players,  converts  his  drawing-room  into  a 
chapel,  his  week-days  into  Sundays,  and  these 
latter  into  minor  heavens.* 

When  my  friend  commences  upon  one  of  those 
solemn  anthems,  which  peradventure  struck  upon 
my  heedless  ear,  rambling  in  the  side  aisles  of 
the  dim  Abbey,  some  five-and-thirty  years  since, 
waking  a  new  sense,  and  putting  a  soul  of  old 
religion  into  my  young  apprehension — (whether 
it  be  that,  in  which  the  Psalmist,  weary  of  the 
persecutions  of  bad  men,  wisheth  to  himself 
dove's  wings — or  that  oilier,  which,  with  a  like 
measure  of  sobriety  and  pathos,  inquireth  by 
what  means  the  young  man  shall  best  cleanse  his 
mind) — a  holy  calm  pervadeth  me.  I  am  for  the 
time 

*  I  have  been  there,  and  still  would  go  ; 
'Tis  like  a  little  heaven  below.— Dr.  Watts. 


B  Cbaptec  on  ;6ar6.  75 

rapt  above  earth, 

And  possess  joys  not  promised  at  my  birth. 

But  when  this  master  of  the  spell,  not  content 
to  have  laid  his  soul  prostrate,  goes  on,  in  his 
power,  to  inflict  more  bliss  than  lies  in  her  ca- 
pacity to  receive, — impatient  to  overcome  her 
*' earthly"  with  his  "heavenly" — still  pouring 
in,  for  protracted  hours,  fresh  waves  and  fresh 
from  the  sea  of  sound,  or  from  that  inexhausted 
German  ocean,  above  which,  in  triumphant  prog- 
ress, dolphin-seated,  ride  those  Arions,  Hayd7i  and 
Mozart,  with  their  attendant  Tritons,  Bach,  Bee- 
ilioven,  and  a  countless  tribe,  whom,  to  attempt  to 
reckon  up,  would  but  plunge  me  again  in  the 
deeps, — I  stagger  under  the  weight  of  harmony, 
reeling  to  and  fro  at  my  wits'  end  ;  clouds,  as  of 
frankincense,  oppress  me — priests,  altars,  censers, 
dazzle  before  me — the  genius  of  his  religion  hath 
me  in  her  toils — a  shadowy  triple  tiara  invests 
the  brow  of  my  friend,  late  so  naked,  so  ingen- 
ious,— he  is  Pope, — and  by  him  sits,  like  as  in  the 
anomaly  of  dreams,  a  she-Pope  too, — tri-coro- 
neted  like  himself! — I  am  converted,  and  yet  a 
Protestant  ; — at  once  malleus  herelicorum,  and  my- 
self grand  heresiarch  :  or  three  heresies  centre  in 
my  person.  I  am  Marcion,  Ebion,  and  Cerinthus 
— Gog  and  Magog — what  not .? — till  the  coming 
in  of  the  friendly  supper-tray  dissipates  the  fig- 
ment, and  a  draught  of  true  Lutheran  beer  (in 
which  chiefly  my  friend  shows  himself  no  bigot) 
at  once  reconciles  me  to  the  rationalities  of  a  purer 
faith  ;  and  restores  to  me  the  genuine  unterrifying 
aspects  of  my  pleasant-countenanced  host  and 
hostess. 


ALL  FOOLS'  DAY. 


The  compliments  of  the  season  to  my  worthy- 
masters,  and  a  merry  first  of  April  to  us  all ! 

Many  happy  returns  of  this  day  to  you — and 
you — andjyou,  sir — nay,  never  frown,  man,  nor 
put  on  a  long  face  upon  the  matter.  Do  not  we 
know  one  another?  What  need  of  ceremony 
among  friends  ?  We  have  all  a  touch  of  /ha/  same 
— you  understand  me — a  speck  of  the  motley. 
Beshrew  the  man  who  on  such  a  day  as  this,  the 
general  fes/ival,  should  affect  to  stand  aloof.  I 
am  none  of  those  sneakers.  I  am  free  of  the  cor- 
poration, and  care  not  who  knows  it.  He  that 
meets  me  in  the  forest  to-day,  shall  meet  with  no 
wiseacre,  I  can  tell  him.  S/ul/us  sum.  Translate 
me  that,  and  take  the  meaning  of  it  to  yourself 
for  your  pains.  What  !  man,  we  have  four  quar- 
ters of  the  globe  on  our  side,  at  the  least  compu- 
tation. 

Fill  us  a  cup  of  that  sparkling  gooseberry, — we 
will  drink  no  wise,  melancholy,  political  port  on 
this  day, — and  let  us  troll  the  catch  of  Amiens 
— due  ad  me — due  ad  me, — how  goes  it.'* 

Here  shall  he  see 
Gross  fools  as  he. 

Now  would  I  give  a  trifle  to  know  historically 
and  authenticallv,  who  was  the  greatest  fool  that 

76 


an  pools'  H)as,  77 

ever  lived.  I  would  certainly  give  him  a  bumper. 
Marry,  of  the  present  breed,  I  think  I  could,  with- 
out much  difficulty,  name  you  the  party. 

Remove  your  cap  a  little  farther,  if  you  please  ; 
it  hides  my  bauble.  And  now  each  man  bestride 
his  hobby,  and  dust  away  his  bells  to  what  tune 
he  pleases.     I  will  give  you,  for  my  part, 

The  crazy  old  church  clock, 

And  the  bewilder'd  chimes. 

Good  master  Empedocles,  you  are  welcome. 
It  is  long  since  you  went  a  salamander-gathering 
down  ^tna.  Worse  than  samphire-picking  by 
some  odds.  Tis  a  mercy  your  worship  did  not 
singe  your  mustachios. 

Ha  !  Cleombrotus  !  and  what  salads  in  faith 
did  you  light  upon  at  the  bottom  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean ?  You  were  founder,  I  take  it,  of  the  dis- 
interested sect  of  the  Calenturists. 

Gebir,  my  old  freemason  and  prince  of  plaster- 
ers at  Babel,  bring  in  your  trowel,  most  Ancient 
Grand  !  You  have  claim  to  a  seat  here  at  my 
right  hand,  as  patron  of  the  stammerers.  You 
left  your  work,  if  I  remember  Herodotus  cor- 
rectly, at  eight  hundred  million  toises,  or  there- 
about, above  the  level  of  the  sea.  Bless  us,  what 
a  long  bell  you  must  have  pulled,  to  call  your  top 
workmen  to  their  luncheon  on  the  low  grounds 
of  Shinar.  Or  did  you  send  up  your  garlic  and 
onions  by  a  rocket  ?  I  am  a  rogue  if  I  am  not 
ashamed  to  show  you  our  monument  on  Fish- 
Street  Hill,  after  your  altitudes.  Yet  we  think  it 
somewhat. 

What,  the  magnanimous  Alexander  in  tears  .^ — 


78  jessa^s  ot  BHa. 

cry,  baby,  put  its  fing-er  in  its  eye,  it  shall  have 
another  globe,  round  as  an  orange,  pretty  mop- 
pet ! 

]\Iister  Adams — 'odso,  I  honor  your  coat — pray 
do  us  the  favor  to  read  to  us  that  sermon,  which 
you  lent  to  Mistress  Slipslop — the  twenty  and 
second  in  your  portmanteau  there — on  Female, 
Incontinence — the  same — it  will  come  in  most 
irreverently  and  impertinently  seasonable  to  the 
time  of  the  day. 

Good  Master  Raymund  Lully,  you  look  wise. 
Pray  correct  that  error. 

Duns,  spare  your  definitions.  I  must  fine  you 
a  bumper,  or  a  paradox.  We  will  have  nothing 
said  or  done  syllogistically  this  day.  Remove 
those  logical  forms,  waiter,  that  no  gentleman 
break  the  tender  shins  of  his  apprehension  stum- 
bling across  them. 

Master  Stephen,  you  are  late.  Ha  !  Cokes,  is 
it  you  ?  Aguecheek,  my  dear  knight,  let  me  pay 
my  devoir  to  you.  Master  Shallow,  your  vv'or- 
ship's  poor  servant  to  command.  Master  Silence, 
I  will  use  a  few  words  with  you.  Slender,  it  shall 
go  hard  if  I  edge  not  you  in  somewhere.  You  six 
will  engross  all  the  poor  wit  of  the  company  to- 
day.    I  know  it,  I  know  it. 

Ha!  honest  R.,  my  fine  old  Librarian  of  Lud- 
gate,  time  out  of  mind,  art  thou  here  again  ?  Bless 
thy  doublet,  it  is  not  over-new,  threadbare  as  thy 
stories  ; — what  dost  thou  flitting  about  the  world 
at  this  rate.^  Thy  customers  are  extinct,  defunct, 
bed-rid,  have  ceased  to  read  long  ago.  Thou  goest 
still  among  them,  seeing  if,  peradventure,  thou 
canst  hawk  a  volume  or  two.  Good  Granville  S., 
thy  last  patron,  is  flown. 


Bll  3fool6'  Das.  79 

King  Pandion,  he  is  dead, 
All  thy  friends  are  lapt  in  lead. 

Nevertheless,  noble  R.,  come  in,  and  take  your 
seat  here,  between  Armado  and  Quisada  ;  for  in 
true  courtesy,  in  gravity,  in  fantastic  smiling  to 
thyself,  in  courteous  smiling  upon  others,  in  the 
goodly  ornature  of  well-apparelled  speech,  and  the 
commendation  of  wise  sentences,  thou  art  noth- 
ing inferior  to  those  accomplished  Dons  of  Spain. 
The  spirit  of  chivalry  forsake  me  forever,  when  I 
forget  thy  singing  the  song  of  Macheath,  which 
declares  that  he  might  be  happy  iviih  either  situated 
between  those  two  ancient  spinsters, — when  I  for- 
get the  inimitable  formal  love  which  thou  didst 
make,  turning  nov/  to  the  one,  and  now  to  the 
other,  with  that  Malvolian  smile — as  if  Cervantes, 
not  Gay,  had  written  it  for  his  hero  ;  and  as  if  thou- 
sands of  periods  must  revolve,  before  the  mirror 
of  courtesy  could  have  given  his  invidious  prefer- 
ence between  a  pair  of  so  goodly-propertied  and 
meritorious-equal  damsels.     .     . 

To  descend  from  these  altitudes,  and  not  to  pro- 
tract our  Fools'  Banquet  beyond  its  appropriate 
day, — for  I  fear  the  second  of  April  is  not  many 
hours  distant, — in  sober  verity  I  will  confess  a 
truth  to  thee,  reader.  I  love  a  Fool — as  naturally, 
as  if  I  were  of  kith  and  kin  to  him.  When  a  child, 
with  childlike  apprehensions,  that  dived  not  below 
the  surface  of  the  matter,  I  read  those  Parables — 
not  guessing  at  the  involved  wisdom, — I  had  more 
yearnings  towards  that  simple  architect,  that  built 
his  house  upon  the  sand,  than  I  entertained  for 
his  more  cautious  neighbor  ;  I  grudged  at  the  hard 
censure  pronounced  upon  the  quiet  soul  that  kept 
his  talent  ;  and — prizing  their  simplicity  beyond 


So  Bssass  of  Blia. 

the  more  provident,  and,  to  my  apprehension, 
somewhat  unfeniinine  wariness  of  their  competi- 
tors— I  felt  a  IcindUness,  that  almost  amounted  to  a 
te?idre,  for  those  five  thoughtless  virgins.  I  have 
never  made  an  acquaintance  since,  that  lasted,  or 
a  friendship  that  answered,  with  any  that  had  not 
some  tincture  of  the  absurd  in  their  characters.  I 
venerate  an  honest  obliquity  of  understanding. 
The  more  laughable  blunders  a  man  shall  commit 
in  your  company,  the  more  tests  he  giveth  you, 
that  he  will  not  betray  or  overreach  you.  I  love 
the  safety  which  a  palpable  hallucination  war- 
rants ;  the  security  which  a  word  out  of  season 
ratifies.  And  take  my  word  for  this,  reader,  and 
say  a  fool  told  it  to  you,  if  you  please,  that  he 
who  hath  not  a  dram  of  folly  in  his  mixture,  hath 
pounds  of  much  worse  matter  in  his  composition. 
It  is  observed  that  "  the  foolisher  the  fowl  or  fish, 
— woodcocks — dotterels — cods'  heads, — etc.,  the 
finer  the  flesh  thereof"  ;  and  what  arc  commonly 
the  world's  received  fools,  but  such  whereof  the 
world  is  not  w^orthy  }  and  what  have  been  some 
of  the  kindliest  patterns  of  our  species,  but  so  many 
darlings  of  absurdity,  minions  of  the  goddess,  and 
her  white  boys.?  Reader,  if 'you  wrest  my  words 
beyond  their  fair  construction,  it  is  not  I,  but  you, 
that  are  the  April  Fool. 


A  QUAKERS'  MEETING. 


Stillborn  Silence  !  thou  that  art 

Floodgate  of  the  deeper  heart ! 

Offspring  of  a  heavenly  kind  ! 

FroGt  o'  the  mouth,  and  thaw  o'  the  mind  : 

Secrecy's  confidant,  and  he 

Who  makes  religion  mystery  ! 

Admiration's  speaking' st  tongue  ! 

Leave  thy  desert  shades  among 

Reverend  hermits'  hallow'd  cells, 

Where  retired  devotion  dwells  ! 

With  thy  enthusiasms  come, 

Seize  our  tongues,  and  strike  us  dumb !  * 

Reader,  would  st  thou  know  what  true  peace 
and  quiet  mean  ;  would'st  thou  find  a  refuge  from 
the  noises  and  clamors  of  the  multitude  ;  would'st 
thou  enjoy  at  once  solitude  and  society  ;  would'st 
thou  possess  the  depth  of  thine  own  spirit  in  still- 
ness, without  being  shut  out  from  the  consolatory 
faces  of  thy  species  ;  would'st  thou  be  alone,  and 
yet  accompanied  ;  solitary,  yet  not  desolate  ;  sin- 
gular, yet  not  without  some  to  keep  thee  in  counte- 
nance ;  a  unit  in  aggregate ;  a  simple  in  compos- 
ite ; — come  with  me  into  a  Quakers'  Meeting. 

Dost  thou  love  silence  deep  as  that  "  before  the 
winds  were  made "  ?  go  not  out  into  the  wilder- 
ness ;  descend  not  into  the   profundities    of  the 

*  From  "  Poems  of  all  Sorts,"  by  Richard  Fleckno,  165'?. 
6  81       " 


82  E65as5  ot  Hlla. 

earth  ;  shut  not  up  thy  casements  ;  nor  pour  wax 
into  the  Httle  cells  of  thy  ears  with  little-faith'd 
self-mistrustmg-  Ulysses.  Retire  with  me  into  a 
Quakers'  Meeting. 

For  a  man  to  refrain  even  from  good  words, 
and  to  hold  his  peace,  it  is  commendable;  but  for 
a  multitude,  it  is  great  mastery. 

What  is  the  stillness  of  the  desert,  compared 
with  this  place.'*  what  the  uncommunicating 
muteness  of  fishes  ? — here  the  goddess  reigns 
and  revels.  "Boreas,  and  Cesias,  and  Argestes 
loud,"  do  not  with  their  inter-confounding  uproars 
more  augment  the  brawl — nor  the  waves  of  the 
blown  Baltic  with  their  clubbed  sounds — than 
their  opposite  (Silence,  her  sacred  self)  is  multi- 
plied and  rendered  more  intense  by  numbers,  and 
by  sympathy.  She  too  hath  her  deeps,  that  call 
unto  deeps.  Negation  itself  hath  a  positive  more 
and  less  ;  and  closed  eyes  would  seem  to  obscure 
the  great  obscurity  of  midnight. 

There  are  wounds  which  an  imperfect  solitude 
cannot  heal.  By  imperfect  I  mean  that  which  a 
man  enjoyeth  by  himself.  The  perfect  is  that 
which  he  can  sometimes  attain  in  crowds,  but 
nowhere  so  absolutely  as  in  a  Quakers'  Meeting. 
Those  first  hermits  did  certainly  understand  this 
principle,  when  they  retired  into  Egyptian  soli- 
tudes, not  singly,  but  in  shoals,  to  enjoy  one 
another's  want  of  conversation.  The  Carthusian 
is  bound  to  his  brethren  by  this  agreeing  spirit  of 
incommunicativeness.  In  secular  occasions,  what 
so  pleasant  as  to  be  reading  a  book  through  a 
long  winter  evening,  with  a  friend  sitting  by — 
say,  a  wife — he.  or  she,  too  (if  that  be  probable), 
reading    another,    without    interruption,    or    oral 


21  (Slualiers'  Meeting.  83 

communication  ? — can  there  be  no  sympathy 
without  the  gabble  of  words  ?  Away  with  this 
inhuman,  shy,  single,  shacie-and-cavern-haunting 
solitariness.  Give  me,  Master  Zimmermann,  a 
sympathetic  solitude. 

To  pace  alone  in  the  cloisters  or  side  aisles 
of  some  cathedral,  time-stricken  ; 

Or  under  hanging  mountains, 
Or  by  the  fall  of  fountains  ; 

is  but  a  vulgar  luxury,  compared  with  that  which 
those  enjoy  who  come  together  for  the  purposes 
of  more  complete,  abstracted  sohtude.  This  is 
the  loneliness  "  to  be  felt "  The  Abbey  Church  of 
Westminster  hath  nothing  so  solemn,  so  spirit- 
soothing,  as  the  naked  walls  and  benches  of  a 
Quakers'  ^Meeting.  Here  are  no  tombs,  no  in- 
scriptions,— 

Sands,  ignoble  things, 

Dropt  from  the  ruined  sides  of  kings  ; — 

but  here  is  something  which  throws  Antiquity 
herself  into  the  foreground — Silence — eldest  of 
things — language  of  old  Night — primitive  Dis- 
courser — to  which  the  insolent  decays  of  moulder- 
ing grandeur  have  but  arrived  by  a  violent,  and, 
as  Vv^e  may  say,  unnatural  progression. 

How  reverend  is  the  view  of  these  hushed  heads, 
Looking  tranquillity  I 

Nothing-plotting,  nought-caballing,  unmischiev- 
ous  synod  !  convocation  without  intrigue  !  parlia- 
ment without  debate  1  what  a  lesson  dost  thou 


84  JE63^^6  Of  BUa. 

read  to  council,  and  to  consistory  !  If  my  pen 
treat  of  you  lightly — as  haply  it  will  wander — yet 
my  spirit  hath  gravely  felt  the  wisdom  of  your 
custom,  when  sitting  among  you  in  deepest  peace, 
which  some  out-welling  tears  would  rather  con- 
firm than  disturb,  I  have  reverted  to  the  times  of 
your  beginnings,  and  the  sowings  of  the  seed  by 
Fox  and  Dewesbury.  I  have  witnessed  that  which 
brought  before  my  eyes  your  heroic  tranquillity, 
inflexible  to  the  rude  jests  and  serious  violences 
of  the  insolent  soldiery,  republican  or  royalist,  sent 
to  molest  you, — for  ye  sat  betwixt  the  fires  of  two 
persecutions,  the  outcast  and  offscouring  of  church 
and  presbytery.  I  have  seen  the  reeling  sea- 
ruffian,  who  had  wandered  into  your  receptacle 
with  the  avowed  intention  of  disturbing  your 
quiet,  from  the  very  spirit  of  the  place  receive  in 
a  moment  a  new  heart,  and  presently  sit  among 
ye,  as  a  lamb  amidst  lambs.  And  I  remember 
Penn  before  his  accusers,  and  Fox  in  the  baildock, 
where  he  was  lifted  up  in  spirit,  as  he  tells  us, 
and  "the  Judge  and  the  Jury  became  as  dead 
men  under  his  feet. " 

Reader,  if  you  are  not  acquainted  with  it,  I 
would  recommend  to  you,  above  all  church-nar- 
ratives, to  read  Sewel's  "  History  of  the  Quakers." 
It  is  in  folio,  and  is  the  abstract  of  the  Journals 
of  Fox  and  the  primitive  Friends.  It  is  far  more 
edifying  and  affecting  than  any  thing  you  will 
read  of  Wesley  and  his  colleagues.  Here  is  noth- 
ing to  stagger  you,  nothing  to  make  you  mistrust, 
no  suspicion  of  alloy,  no  drop  or  dreg  of  the 
worldly  or  ambitious  spirit.  You  will  here  read 
the  true  story  of  that  much-injured,  ridiculed 
man  (who  perhaps  hath  been  a  by-word  in  your 


mouth) — James  Naylor  :  what  dreadful  sufferings, 
with  what  patience,  he  endured,  even  to  the  bor- 
ing through  of  his  tongue  with  red-hot  iron,  with- 
out a  murmur  ;  and  with  what  strength  of  mind, 
when  the  delusion  he  had  fallen  into,  which  they 
stigmatized  for  blasphemy,  had  given  way  to 
clearer  thoughts,  he  could  renounce  his  error,  in 
a  strain  of  the  beautifullest  humility,  yet  keep  his 
first  grounds,  and  be  a  Quaker  still  ! — so  different 
from  the  practice  of  your  common  converts  from 
enthusiasm,  who,  when  they  apostatize,  aposfa- 
iize  all,  and  think  they  can  never  ^^i  far  enough 
from  the  society  of  their  former  errors,  even  to 
the  renunciation  of  some  saving  truths,  with 
which  they  had  been  mingled,  not  implicated. 

Get  the  writings  of  John  Woolman  by  heart  ; 
and  love  the  early  Quakers. 

How  far  the  followers  of  these  good  men  in 
our  days  have  kept  to  the  primitive  spirit,  or  in  what 
proportion  they  have  substituted  formality  for  it, 
the  Judge  of  Spirits  can  alone  determine.  I  have 
seen  faces  in  their  assemblies,  upon  which  the 
dove  sat  visibly  brooding.  Others  again  I  have 
watched,  when  my  thoughts  should  have  been 
better  engaged,  in  which  I  could  possibly  detect 
nothing  but  a  blank  inanity.  But  quiet  was  in  all, 
and  the  disposition  to  unanimity,  and  the  absence 
of  the  tierce  controversial  workings.  If  the  spirit- 
ual pretensions  of  the  Quakers  have  abated,  at  least 
they  make  few  pretences.  Hypocrites  they  cer- 
tainly are  not,  in  their  preaching.  It  is  seldom  in- 
deed that  you  shall  see  one  get  up  amongst  them 
to  hold  forth.  Only  now  and  then  a  trembling, 
female,  generally  ancient,  voice  is  heard — you 
cannot  guess  from  what  part  of  the  meeting  it 


86  JEssa^s  Oi  sua. 

proceeds — with  a  low,  buzzing,  musical  sound, 
laying  out  a  few  words,  which  "she  thought 
might  suit  the  condition  of  some  present,"  with  a 
quaking  diffidence,  which  leaves  no  possibility 
of  supposing  that  any  thing  of  female  vanity  was 
mixed  up,  where  the  tones  were  so  full  of  tender- 
ness and  a  restraining  modesty.  The  men,  for 
what  1  have  observed,  speak  seldomer. 

Once  only,  and  it  was  some  years  ago,  I  wit- 
nessed a  sample  of  the  old  Foxian  orgasm.  It 
was  a  man  of  giant  stature,  who,  as  Wordsworth 
phrases  it,  might  have  danced  "from  head  to 
foot  equipt  in  iron  mail."'  His  frame  was  of  iron 
too.  But  lie  was  malleable.  I  saw  him  shake 
all  over  with  the  spirit — I  dare  not  say  of  delu- 
sion. The  strivings  of  the  outer  man  were  un- 
utterable— he  seemed  not  to  speak,  but  to  be 
spoken  from.  I  saw  the  strong  man  bowed 
down,  and  his  knees  to  fail — hisjoints  all  seemed 
loosening.  It  was  a  figure  to  set  off  against  Paul 
Preaching.  The  words  he  uttered  were  few,  and 
sound — he  was  evidently  resisting  his  will — keep- 
ing down  his  own  word- wisdom  with  more 
mighty  effort,  than  the  world's  orators  strain  for 
theirs.  "  Pie  had  been  a  Wit  in  his  youth,"  he 
told  us,  with  expressions  of  a  sober  remorse. 
And  it  was  not  till  long  after  the  impression  had 
begun  to  wear  away,  that  I  was  enabled,  with 
something  like  a  smile,  to  recall  the  striking  in- 
congruity of  the  confession — understanding  the 
term  in  its  worldly  acceptation — with  the  frame 
and  physiognomy  of  the  person  before  me.  His 
brow  would  have  scared  away  the  Levites — the 
Tocos  Risus-que — faster  than  the  Loves  fled  the 
lace  of  Dis  at  Enna.      By  wil,  even   in  his  youth, 


I  will  be  sworn,  he  understood  something  far 
within  the  limits  of  an  allowable  liberty. 

More  frequently  the  Meeting  is  broken  up  with- 
out a  word  having  been  spoken.  But  the  mind 
has  been  fed.  You  go  away  with  a  sermon  not 
made  with  hands.  You  have  been  in  the  milder 
cavern  of  Trophonius  ;  or  as  in  some  den,  where 
that  fiercest  and  savagest  of  all  wild  creatures, 
the  Tongue,  that  unruly  member,  has  strangely 
lain  tied  up  and  captive.  You  have  bathed  with 
stillness.  O,  when  the  spirit  is  sore  fettered,  even 
tired  to  sickness  of  the  janglings,  and  nonsense- 
noises  of  the  world,  what  a  balm  and  solace  it  is, 
to  go  and  seat  yourself,  for  a  quiet  half  hour, 
upon  some  undisputed  corner  of  a  bench,  among 
the  gentle  Quakers  ! 

Their  garb  and  stillness  conjoined,  present  a 
uniformity,  tranquil  and  herd-like — as  in  the  pas- 
ture,—  "forty  feeding  like  one." 

The  very  garments  of  a  Quaker  seem  incapable 
of  receiving  a  soil  ;  and  cleanliness  in  them  to  be 
something  more  than  the  absence  of  its  contrary. 
Every  Quakeress  is  a  lily  ;  and  when  they  come 
up  in  bands  to  their  Whitsun-conferences,  whiten- 
ing the  easterly  streets  of  the  metropolis,  from 
all  parts  of  the  United  Kingdom,  they  show  like 
troops  of  the  Shining  Ones. 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  SCHOOL-MASTER. 


I\Iy  reading  has  been  lamentably  desultory  and 
immethodical.  Odd,  out-of-the-way  old  English 
plays  and  treatises,  have  supplied  me  with  most 
of  my  notions,  and  ways  of  feeling.  In  every 
thing  that  relates  to  science,  I  am  a  whole  Ency- 
clopaedia behind  the  rest  of  the  world.  I  should 
have  scarcely  cut  a  figure  among  the  franklins,  or 
country  gentlemen,  in  King  John's  days.  I  know 
less  geography  than  a  school-boy  of  six  -weeks' 
standing.  To  me  a  map  of  old  Ortelius  is  as 
authentic  as  Arrowsmith.  I  do  not  know  where- 
about Africa  merges  into  Asia  ;  whether  Ethiopia 
lie  in  one  or  other  of  those  great  divisions  ;  nor 
can  form  the  remotest  conjecture  of  the  position 
of  New  South  Wales,  or  Van  Diemen's  Land. 
Yet  do  I  hold  a  correspondence  with  a  very  dear 
friend  in  the  first-named  of  these  two  Terrse  Incog- 
nitae.  I  have  no  astronomy.  I  do  not  know 
where  to  look  for  the  Bear,  or  Charles'  Wain  ;  the 
place  of  any  star  ;  or  the  name  of  any  of  them  at 
sight.  I  guess  a  Venus  only  by  her  brightness  ; 
and  if  the  sun  on  some  portentous  morn  were  to 
make  his  first  appearance  in  the  West,  I  verily 
believe,  that,  while  all  the  world  were  gasping 
in  apprehension  about  me,  I  alone  should  stand 
unterriiied,  from  sheer  incuriosity  and  want  of 
observation.  Of  history  and  chronology  I  possess 
88 


XLhc  ©ID  anO  tbe  IWew  Scbool^/lRasten      89 

some  vague  points,  such  as  one  cannot  help  pick- 
ing- up  in  the  course  of  miscellaneous  study  ;  but 
I  never  deliberately  sat  down  to  a  chronicle,  even 
of  my  own  country.  I  have  most  dim  apprehen- 
sions of  the  four  great  monarchies  ;  and  sometimes 
the  Assyrian,  sometimes  the  Persian,  floats  as 
fas/,  in  my  fancy.  I  make  the  widest  conjectures 
concerning  Egypt  and  her  shepherd  kings.  My 
friend  M. ,  with  great  painstaking,  got  me  to  think 
I  understood  the  first  proposition  in  Euclid,  but 
gave  me  over  in  despair  at  the  second.  I  am 
entirely  unacquainted  with  the  modern  languages  ; 
and,  like  a  better  man  than  myself,  have  ''small 
Latin,  and  less  Greek."  I  am  a  stranger  to  the 
shapes  and  texture  of  the  commonest  trees,  herbs, 
flowers, — not  from  the  circumstance  of  my  being 
town-born, — for  I  should  have  brought  the  same 
inobservant  spirit  into  the  world  with  me,  had  I 
first  seen  it  "  on  Devon's  leafy  shores," — and  am 
no  less  at  a  loss  among  purely  town-objects, 
tools,  engines,  mechanic  processes.  Not  that  I 
affect  ignorance — but  my  head  has  not  many 
mansions,  nor  spacious  ;  and  I  have  been  obliged 
to  fill  it  with  such  cabinet  curiosities  as  it  can 
hold  without  aching.  I  sometimes  wonder  how 
I  have  passed  my  probation  with  so  little  discredit 
in  the  world,  as  I  have  done,  upon  so  meagre  a 
stock.  But  the  fact  is,  a  man  may  do  very  well 
with  a  very  little  knowledge,  and  scarce  be  found 
out,  in  mixed  company ;  everybody  is  so  much 
more  ready  to  produce  his  own,  than  to  call  for 
a  display  of  your  acquisitions.  But  in  a  lete-a-iete 
there  is  no  shuffling.  The  truth  will  out.  There 
is  nothing  which  I  dread  so  much  as  the  being  left 
alone  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  with  a   sensible, 


90  JSasa^s  cf  Blia. 

well-informed  man,  that  does   not   know  me.     I 
lately  got  into  a  dilemma  of  this  sort. 

In  one  of  my  daily  jaunts  between  Bishops- 
gate  and  Shacklewell,  the  coach  stopped  to  take 
up  a  staid-looking  gentleman,  about  the  wrong 
side  of  thirty,  who  was  giving  his  parting  direc- 
tions (while  the  steps  were  adjusting)  in  a  tone  of 
mild  authority,  to  a  tall  youth,  who  seemed  to  be 
neither  his  clerk,  his  son,  nor  his  servant,  but 
something  partaking  of  all  three.  The  youth  was 
dismissed,  and  we  drove  on.  As  we  were  the 
sole  passengers,  he  naturally  enough  addressed 
his  conversation  to  me  :  and  we  discussed  the 
merits  of  the  fare,  the  civility  and  punctuality  of 
the  driver  ;  the  circumstance  of  an  opposition 
coach  having  been  lately  set  up,  with  the  prob- 
abilities of  its  success, — to  all  which  I  was 
enabled  to  return  pretty  satisfactory  answers, 
having  been  drilled  into  this  kind  of  etiquette 
by  some  years'  daily  practice  of  riding  to  and 
fro  in  the  stage  aforesaid, — when  he  suddenly 
alarmed  me  by  a  startling  question,  whether  I  had 
seen  the  show  of  prize  cattle  that  morning  in 
Smithfield .''  Now,  as  I  had  not  seen  it,  and  do 
not  greatly  care  for  such  sort  of  exhibitions,  I  was 
obliged  to  return  a  cold  negative.  He  seemed  a 
little  mortified  as  well  as  astonished  at  my  dec- 
laration, as  (it  appeared)  he  was  just  come  fresh 
from  the  sight,  and  doubtless  had  hoped  to  com- 
pare notes  on  the  subject.  However,  he  assured 
me  that  I  had  lost  a  fine  treat,  as  it  far  exceeded 
the  show  of  last  year.  We  were  now  approach- 
ing Norton  Folgate,  when  the  sight  of  some  shop- 
goods  ticketed  freshened  him  up  into  a  dissertation 
upon  the  cheapness  of  cottons  this  spring.     I  was 


Zbc  ©ID  an&  tbe  1Klew  ScbcoUilftaster.      91 

now  a  little  in  heart,  as  the  nature  of  my  morn- 
ing avocations  had  brought  me  into  some  sort  of 
familiarity  with  the  raw  material  ;  and  I  was  sur- 
prised to  find  how  eloquent  I  \vas  becoming  on 
the  state  of  the  India  market, — when,  presently, 
he  dashed  my  incipient  vanity  to  the  earth  at 
once,  by  inquiring  whether  I  had  ever  made  any 
calculation  as  to  the  value  of  the  rental  of  all  the 
retail  shops  in  London.  Had  he  asked  of  me 
what  song  the  Siren  sang,  or  what  name  Achilles 
assumed  when  he  hid  himself  among  women,  I 
might,  with  Sir  Thomas  Brovv-ne,  have  hazarded 
a  "wide  solution. "  *  My  companion  saw  my  em- 
barrassment, and,  the  alms-houses  beyond  Shore- 
ditch  just  coming  in  view,  with  great  good-nature 
and  dexterity  shifted  his  conversation  to  the  sub- 
ject of  public  charities  ;  which  led  to  the  compar- 
ative merits  of  provision  for  the  poor  in  past  and 
present  times,  with  observations  on  the  old 
monastic  institutions,  and  charitable  orders  ;  but, 
finding  me  rather  dimly  impressed  with  some 
glimmering  notions  from  old  poetic  associations, 
than  strongly  fortified  with  any  speculations  re- 
ducible to  calculation  on  the  subject,  he  gave  the 
matter  up ;  and,  the  country  beginning  to  open 
more  and  more  upon  us,  as  we  approached  the 
turnpike  at  Kingsland  (the  destined  termination 
of  his  journey),  he  put  a  home  thrust  upon  me, 
in  the  most  unfortunate  position  he  could  have 
chosen,  by  advancing  some  queries  relative  to 
the  North  Pole  Expedition.  While  I  was  mutter- 
ing out  something  about  the  panorama  of  those 
strange  regions  (which  I  had  actually  seen),  by 
way  of  parrying  the  question,  the  coach  stopping 
*  "  Urn  Burial" 


92  iSsaa^s  of  :6Ua. 

relieved  me  from  any  further  apprehensions. 
My  companion  getting  out,  left  me  in  the  comfort- 
able possession  of  my  ignorance  ;  and  I  heard 
him,  as  he  went  off,  putting  questions  to  an  out- 
side passenger,  who  had  alighted  with  him, 
regarding  an  epidemic  disorder  that  had  been 
rife  about  Dalston,  and  which  my  friend  assured 
him  had  gone  through  five  or  six  schools  in  that 
neighborhood.  The  truth  now  flashed  upon  me, 
that  my  companion  w^as  a  school-master ;  and 
that  the  youth  whom  he  had  parted  from  at  our 
first  acquaintance,  must  have  been  one  of  the 
bigger  boys,  or  the  usher.  He  was  evidently  a 
kind-hearted  man,  who  did  not  seem  so  much 
desirous  of  provoking  discussion  by  the  questions 
which  he  put,  as  of  obtaining  information  at  any 
rate.  It  did  not  appear  that  he  took  any  interest, 
either,  in  such  kind  of  inquiries,  for  their  ovvHi 
sakes  ;  but  that  he  was  in  some  way  bound  to 
seek  for  knowledge.  A  greenish-colored  coat 
which  he  had  on,  forbade  me  to  surmise  that  he 
was  a  clergyman.  The  adventure  gave  birth  to 
some  reflections  on  the  difference  between  persons 
of  his  profession  in  past  and  present  times. 

Rest  to  the  souls  of  those  fme  old  pedagogues  ; 
the  breed,  long  since  extinct,  of  the  Lilys,  and  the 
Linacres  ;  who  believing  that  all  learning  was 
contained  in  the  languages  which  they  taught, 
and  despising  every  other  acquirement  as  superfi- 
cial and  useless,  came  to  their  task  as  to  a  sport  ! 
Passing  from  infancy  to  age,  they  dreamed  away 
all  their  days  as  in  a  grammar-school.  Revolv- 
ing in  a  perpetual  cycle  of  declensions,  conjuga- 
tions, syntaxes,  and  prosodies  ;  renewing  con- 
stantly the  occupations  which  had  charmed  their 


^be  ©ID  anD  tbe  Bew  Scbooum^sUv,      93 

studious  childhood  ;  rehearsing-  continually  the 
part  of  the  past  ;  life  must  have  slipped  from  them 
at  last  like  one  day.  They  were  always  in  their 
first  garden,  reaping  harvests  of  their  golden  time, 
among  their  F/ori  and  their  Spicia-legia  ;  in  Ar- 
cadia still,  but  kings  ;  the  ferule  of  their  sway 
not  much  harsher,  but  of  like  dignity  with  that 
mild  sceptre  attributed  to  King  Basileus  ;  the 
Greek  and  Latin,  their  stately  Pamela  and  their 
Philoclea  ;  with  the  occasional  duncery  of  some 
untoward  tyro,  serving  for  a  refreshing  interlude 
of  a  ]\Iopsa  or  a  clown  Damoetas  ! 

With  what  a  savor  doth  the  preface  to  Colet's 
or  (as  it  is  sometimes  called)  Paul's  "Accidence," 
set  forth  !  * '  To  exhort  every  man  to  the  learning 
of  grammar  that  intendeth  to  attain  the  under- 
standing of  the  tongues,  wherein  is  contained  a 
great  treasury  of  wisdom  and  knowledge,  it  would 
seem  but  vain  and  lost  labor  ;  for  so  much  as  it 
is  known,  that  nothing  can  surely  be  ended, 
whose  beginning  is  either  feeble  or  faulty  ;  and 
no  building  be  perfect  whereas  the  foundation  and 
groundwork  is  ready  to  fall,  and  unable  to  uphold 
the  burden  of  the  frame."  How  well  doth  this 
stately  preamble  (comparable  to  those  which 
Milton  commendeth  as  ' '  having  been  the  usage  to 
prefix  to  some  solemn  law,  then  first  promulgated 
by  Solon,  or  Lycurgus,")  correspond  with  and 
illustrate  that  pious  zeal  for  conformity,  expressed 
in  a  succeeding  clause,  which  would  fence  about 
grammar-rules,  with  the  severity  of  faith-articles  ! 
—  "as  for  the  diversity  of  grammars,  it  is  well 
profitably  taken  away  by  the  Kings  Majesties 
wisdom,  who,  foreseeing  the  inconvenience,  and 
favorably  providing  the  remedie,  caused  one  kind 


94  JEssa^s  of  Blia. 

of  grammar  by  sundry  learned  men  to  be  dili- 
gently drawn,  and  so  to  be  set  out,  only  CA'^ery 
where  to  be  taught,  for  the  use  of  learners,  and 
for  the  hurt  in  changing  of  schoolmaisters. '' 
What  'A gusto  in  that  which  follows  :  "wherein  it 
is  profitable  that  he  [the  pupil]  can  orderly  decline 
his  noun,  and  his  verb."     His  noun  ! 

The  fine  dream  is  fading  away  fast  ;  and  the 
least  concern  of  a  teacher  in  the  present  day  is 
to  inculcate  grammar  rules. 

The  modern  school-master  is  expected  to  know 
a  little  of  every  thing,  because  his  pupil  is  re- 
quired not  to  be  entirely  ignorant  of  any  thing. 
He  must  be  superficially,  if  I  may  say  so,  omnis- 
cient. He  is  to  know  something  of.  pneumatics, 
of  chemistry,  of  whatever  is  curious,  or  proper 
to  excite  the  attention  of  the  youthful  mind  ;  an 
insight  into  mechanics  is  desirable,  with  a  touch 
of  statistics  ;  the  quality  of  soils,  etc. ;  botany,  the 
constitution  of  his  country,  cum  inuliis  aliis.  You 
may  get  a  notion  of  some  part  of  his  expected 
duties  by  consulting  the  famous  Tractate  on 
Education,  addressed  to  ]Mr.  Hartlib. 

All  these  things — these,  or  the  desire  of  them, 
— he  is  expected  to  instil,  not  by  set  lessons  from 
professors,  which  he  may  charge  in  the  bill,  but 
at  school-intervals,  as  he  walks  the  streets,  or 
saunters  through  green  fields  (those  natural  in- 
structors), with  his  pupils.  The  least  part  of  what 
is  expected  from  him,  is  to  be  done  in  school 
hours.  He  must  insinuate  knowledge  at  the 
viollia  tern p  or  a  f audi.  He  must  seize  every  occa- 
sion— the  season  of  the  year — the  time  of  the 
day — a  passing  cloud — a  rainbow — a  wagon  of 
hay — a  regiment  of  soldiers  going  by — to  inculcate 


Ubc  ©ID  anD  tbe  new  ScbooUf^^stcv,      95 

something  useful.  He  can  receive  no  pleasure 
from  a  casual  glimpse  of  Nature,  but  must  catch  at 
it  as  an  object  of  instruction.  He  must  interpret 
beauty  into  the  picturesque.  He  cannot  relish  a 
beggar-man,  or  a  gypsy,  for  thinking  of  the  suit- 
able improvement.  Nothing  comes  to  him,  not 
spoiled  by  the  sophisticating  medium  of  moral 
uses.  The  Universe — that  Great  Book,  as  it  has 
been  called — is  to  him  indeed,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  a  book,  out  of  which  he  is  doomed  to 
read  tedious  homilies  to  distasting  school-boys. 
Vacations  themselves  are  none  to  him,  he  is  only 
rather  worse  off  than  before  ;  for  commonly  he 
has  some  intrusive  upper-boy  fastened  upon  him 
at  such  times  ;  some  cadet  of  a  great  family  ; 
some  neglected  lump  of  nobility,  or  gentry  ;  that 
he  must  drag  after  him  to  the  play,  to  the  Pano- 
rama, t-o  IMr.  Hartley's  Orrery,  to  the  Panopticon, 
or  into  the  country,  to  a  friend's  house,  or  his 
favorite  watering-place.  Wherever  he  goes,  this 
uneasy  shadow  attends  him.  A  boy  is  at  his 
board,  and  in  his  path,  and  in  all  his  movements. 
He  is  boy-rid,  sick  of  perpetual  boy. 

Boys  are  capital  fellows  in  their  own  way, 
among  their  mates  ;  but  they  are  unwholesome 
companions  for  grown  people.  The  restraint  is 
felt  no  less  on  the  one  side,  than  on  the  other. 
Even  a  child,  "that  plaything  for  an  hour,''  tires 
ahvays.  The  noises  of  children,  playing  their 
own  fancies — as  I  now  hearken  to  them  by  fits, 
sporting  on  the  green  before  my  v/indow,  v/hile  I 
am  engaged  in  these  grave  speculations  at  my 
neat  suburban  retreat  at  Shacklewell — by  distance 
made  more  sweet — inexpressibly  take  from  the 
labor  of  my   task.     It  is    like  writing  to  music. 


96  Bssa^e  ot  Blia, 

They  seem  to  modulate  my  periods.  They  ought 
at  least  to  do  so, — for  in  the  voice  of  that  tender 
age  there  is  a  kind  of  poetry,  far  unlike  the  harsh 
prose-accents  of  man's  conversation,  I  should  but 
spoil  their  sport,  and  diminish  my  own  sympathy 
for  them,  by  mingling  in  their  pastime. 

I  would  not  be  domesticated  all  my  days  with 
a  person  of  very  superior  capacity  to  my  own, — 
not,  if  I  know  myself  at  all,  from  any  consider- 
ations of  jealousy  or  self-comparison,  for  the 
occasional  communion  with  such  minds  has  con- 
stituted the  fortune  and  felicity  of  my  life, — but 
the  habit  of  too  constant  intercourse  with  spirits 
above  you,  instead  of  raising  you,  keeps  you  dov/n. 
Too  frequent  doses  of  original  thinking  from 
others,  restrain  what  lesser  portion  of  that  faculty 
you  may  possess  of  your  own.  You  get  entangled 
in  another  mans  mind,  even  as  you  lose  yourself 
in  another  mans  grounds.  You  are  walking  with 
a  tall  varlet,  whose  strides  out-pace  yours  to  las- 
situde. The  constant  operation  of  such  potent 
agency  would  reduce  me,  I  am  convinced,  to  im- 
becility. You  may  derive  thoughts  from  others ; 
your  way  of  thinking,  the  mould  in  which  your 
thoughts  are  cast,  must  be  your  own.  Intellect 
may  be  imparted,  but  not  each  man's  intellectual 
frame. 

As  little  as  I  should  wish  to  be  always  thus 
dragged  upward,  as  little  (or  rather  still  less)  is  it 
desirable  to  be  stunted  downward  by  your  associ- 
ates. The  trumpet  does  not  more  stun  you  by 
its  loudness,  than  a  whisper  teases  you  by  its 
provoking  inaudibility. 

Why  are  we  never  quite  at  our  ease  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  school-master } — because  we  are  con- 


^be  ©ID  anO  tbe  1Rew  Scbool^jfBbaster.      97 

scious  that  he  is  not  quite  at  his  ease  in  ours. 
He  is  awkward,  and  out  of  place,  in  the  society 
of  his  equals.  He  comes  like  Gulliver  from 
among  his  little  people,  and  he  cannot  lit  the 
stature  of  his  understanding  to  yours.  He  can- 
not meet  you  on  the  square.  He  wants  a  point 
given  him,  like  an  indifferent  whist-player.  He 
is  so  used  to  teaching,  that  he  wants  to  be  teach- 
in  g_yo7A  One  of  these  professors,  upon  my  com- 
plaining that  these  little  sketches  of  mine  v/ere 
any  thing  but  methodical,  and  that  I  was  unable 
to  make  them  otherwise,  kindly  offered  to  instruct 
me  in  the  method  by  w^hich  young  gentlemen  in 
his  seminary  were  taught  to  compose  English 
themes.  The  jests  of  a  school-master  are  coarse, 
or  thin.  They  do  not /e// out  of  school.  He  is 
under  the  restraint  of  a  formal  or  didactive  hypoc- 
risy in  company,  as  a  clergyman  is  under  a 
moral  one.  He  can  no  more  let  his  intellect  loose 
in  society,  than  the  other  can  his  inclinations. 
He  is  forlorn  among  his  coevals ;  his  juniors 
cannot  be  his  friends. 

*'  I  take  blame  to  myself,"  said  a  sensible  man 
of  this  profession,  writing  to  a  friend  respecting  a 
youth  who  had  quitted  his  school  abruptly,  *'  that 
your  nephew  was  not  more  attached  to  me.  But 
persons  in  my  situation  are  more  to  be  pitied, 
than  can  well  be  imagined.  We  are  surrounded 
by  young  and,  consequently,  ardently  affectionate 
hearts,  but  we  can  never  hope  to  share  an  atom 
of  their  affections,  The  relation  of  master  and 
scholar  forbids  this.  How  pleasing  this  must  he  to 
you,  how  I  envy  your  feelings  I  my  friends  will 
sometimes  say  to  me,  when  they  see  young  men 
whom  I  have  educated,  return  after  some  years' 
7 


98  7B65^^6  Of  Blia. 

absence  from  school,  their  eyes  shining-  with 
pleasure,  while  they  shake  hands  with  their  old 
master,  bringing  a  present  of  game  to  me,  or  a 
toy  to  my  wife,  and  thanking  me  in  the  warmest 
terms  for  my  care  of  their  education.  A  holiday 
is  begged  for  the  boys  ;  the  house  is  a  scene  of 
happiness  ;  1,  only,  am  sad  at  heart.  This  fine- 
spirited  and  warm-hearted  youth,  who  fancies  he 
repays  his  master  with  gratitude  for  the  care  of  his 
boyish  years — this  young  man — in  the  eight  long 
years  I  watched  over  him  with  a  parent's  anxiety, 
never  could  repay  me  with  one  look  of  genuine 
feeling.  He  was  proud,  when  I  praised ;  he  was 
submissive,  when  I  reproved  him  ;  but  he  did 
never  /ove  me  ; — and  what  he  now  mistakes  for 
gratitude  and  kindness  for  me,  is  but  the  pleasant 
sensation  which  all  persons  feel  at  revisiting  the 
scenes  of  their  boyish  hopes  and  fears  ;  and  the 
seeing  on  equal  terms  the  man  they  were  accus- 
tomed to  look  up  to  with  reverence.  My  wife, 
too,"  this  interesting  correspondent  goes  on  to 
say,  "my  once  darling  Anna,  is  the  wife  of  a 
school-master.  When  I  married  her, — knowinof 
that  the  wife  of  a  school-master  ought  to  be  a  busy 
notable  creature,  and  fearing  that  my  gentle  Anna 
would  ill  supply  the  loss  of  my  dear  bustling 
mother,  just  then  dead,  who  never  sat  still,  was 
in  every  part  of  the  house  in  a  moment,  and  whom 
I  was  obliged  sometimes  to  threaten  to  fasten 
down  in  a  chair,  to  save  her  from  fatiguing  her- 
self to  death, — I  expressed  my  fears  that  I  was 
bringing  her  into  a  way  of  Hfe  unsuitable  to  her  ; 
and  she,  who  loved  me  tenderly,  promised  for  my 
sake  to  exert  herself  to  perform  the  duties  of  her 
new  situation.     She  promised  and  she  has  kept 


Zbc  ®10  anD  tbe  mew  Scbool^/Ifcaster.      99 

her  word.  What  wonders  will  not  woman's  love 
perform  ?  My  house  is  managed  with  a  propriety 
and  decorum  unknown  in  other  schools  ;  my  boys 
are  well  fed,  look  healthy,  and  have  every  proper 
accommodation  ;  and  all  this  is  performed  with  a 
careful  economy,  that  never  descends  to  mean- 
ness. But  I  have  lost  my  gentle  helpless  Anna  ! 
When  we  sit  down  to  enjoy  an  hour  of  repose 
after  the  fatigue  of  the  day,  I  am  compelled  to 
listen  to  what  has  been  her  useful  (and  they  are 
really  useful)  employments  through  the  day,  and 
what  she  proposes  for  her  to-morrow's  task.  Her 
heart  and  her  features  are  changed  by  the  duties 
of  her  situation.  To  the  boys,  she  never  appears 
other  than  the  master  s  wife,  and  she  looks  up  to 
me  as  the  hoy's  master  ;  to  whom  all  show  of  love 
and  affection  would  be  highly  improper,  and 
unbecoming  the  dignity  of  her  situation  and  mine. 
Yet  this  my  gratitude  forbids  me  to  hint  to  her. 
For  my  sake  she  submitted  to  be  this  altered 
creature,  and  can  I  reproach  her  for  it.^^" — For  the 
communication  of  this  letter,  1  am  indebted  to  my 
cousin  Bridget. 


IMPERFECT  SYMPATHIES. 


I  am  of  a  constitution  so  general,  that  it  consorts  and  sym- 
pathizeth  with  all  things  ;  I  have  no  antipathy,  or  rather  idio- 
syncrasy in  any  thing.  Those  natural  repugnances  do  not 
touch  me,  nor  do  I  behold  with  prejudice  the  French,  Italian, 
Spaniard,  or  Dutch. — "  Religio  Medici." 

That  the  author  of  the  ''ReHgio  Medici," 
mounted  upon  the  airy  stilts  of  abstraction,  con- 
versant about  notional  and  conjectural  essences  ; 
in  whose  categories  of  Being  the  possible  took  the 
upper  hand  of  the  actual  ;  should  have  overlooked 
the  impertinent  individualities  of  such  poor 
concretions  as  mankind,  is  not  much  to  be  ad- 
mired. It  is  rather  to  be  wondered  at,  that  in  the 
genius  of  animals  he  should  have  condescended 
to  distinguish  that  species  at  all.  For  myself — 
earthbound  and  fettered  to  the  scene  of  my  activ- 
ities,— 

Standing  on  earth,  not  rapt  above  the  sky, 

I  confess  that  I  do  feel  the  differences  of  mankind, 
national  or  individual,  to  an  unhealthy  excess.  I 
can  look  with  no  indifferent  eye  upon  things  or 
persons.  Whatever  is,  is  to  me  a  matter  of  taste 
or  distaste  ;  or  when  once  it  becomes  indifferent, 
it  begins  to  be  disrelishing.  I  am,  in  plainer 
words,  a  bundle  of  prejudices — made  up  of  likings 
and  dislikings — the  veriest  thrall  to  sympathies, 

lOO 


Imperfect  Ssmpatblee.  loi 

apathies,  antipathies.  In  a  certain  sense,  I  hope 
it  may  be  said  of  me  that  I  am  a  lover  of  my 
species.  I  can  feel  for  all  indifferently,  but  I 
cannot  feel  toward  all  equally.  The  more  purely 
English  word  that  expresses  sympathy,  will  better 
explain  my  meaning.  I  can  be  a  friend  to  a 
worthy  man,  who  upon  another  account  cannot 
be  ni}^  mate  or  fellow.  I  cannot  like  all  people 
alike.  * 

I  have  been  trying  all  my  life  to  like  Scotch- 
men, and  am  obliged  to  desist  from  the  experi- 
ment in  despair.  They  cannot  like  me, — and 
in  truth,   I  never  knew  one  of  that  nation  who 

*  I  would  be  understood  as  confining  myself  to  the  subject 
of  imperfect  sympathies.  To  nations  or  classes  of  men  there 
can  be  no  direct  antipathy.  There  may  be  individuals  born 
and  constellated  so  opposite  to  another  individual  nature,  that 
the  same  sphere  cannot  hold  them.  I  have  met  with  my  moral 
antipodes,  and  can  believe  the  story  of  two  persons  meeting 
(who  never  saw  one  another  before  in  their  lives)  and  instantly 
fighting. 

We  by  proof  find  there  should  be 

'Twixt  man  and  man  such  an  antipathy, 
That  though  he  can  show  no  just  reason  why 
For  any  former  wrong  or  injury 
Can  neither  find  a  blemish  in  his  fame, 
Nor  aught  in  face  or  feature  justly  blame, 
Can  challenge  or  accuse  him  of  no  evil, 
Yet  notwithstanding,  hates  him  as  a  devil. 

The  lines  are  from  old  Heywood's  "  Hierarchic  of  Angels," 
and  he  subjoins  a  curious  story  in  confirmation,  of  a  Spaniard 
who  attempted  to  assassinate  a  King  Ferdinand  of  Spain,  and 
being  put  to  the  rack  could  give  no  other  reason  for  the  deed 
but  an  inveterate  antipathy  which  he  had  taken  at  the  first 
sight  of  the  king. 

The  cause  which  to  that  act  compell'd  him 

Was,  he  ne'er  loved  him  since  he  first  beheld  him. 


102  JEssa^a  of  Blia. 

attempted  to  do  it.  There  is  something  more 
plain  and  ingenuous  in  their  mode  of  proceed- 
ing. We  know  one  another  at  first  sight. 
There  is  an  order  of  imperfect  intellects  (under 
which  mine  must  be  content  to  rank)  which  in 
its  constitution  is  essentially  anti-Caledonian. 
The  owners  of  the  sort  of  faculties  I  allude  to 
have  minds  rather  suggestive  than  compre- 
hensive. They  have  no  pretences  to  much 
clearness  of  precision  in  their  ideas,  or  in  their 
manner  of  expressing  them.  Their  intellectual 
wardrobe  (to  confess  fairly)  has  few  whole 
pieces  in  it.  They  are  content  with  fragments 
and  scattered  pieces  of  Truth.  She  presents  no 
full  front  to  them — a  feature  or  side-face  at  the 
most.  Hints  and  glimpses,  germs  and  crude 
essays  at  a  system,  is  the  utmost  they  pretend 
to.  They  beat  up  a  little  game  peradventure — ■ 
and  leave  it  to  knottier  heads,  more  robust  con- 
stitutions, to  run  it  down.  The  light  that  lights 
them  is  not  steady  and  polar,  but  mutable  and 
shifting  ;  waxing,  and  again  waning.  Their  con- 
versation is  accordingly.  They  will  throw  out  a 
random  word  in  or  out  of  season,  and  be  content 
to  let  it  pass  for  what  it  is  worth.  They  cannot 
speak  always  as  if  they  were  upon  their  oath, — • 
but  must  be  understood,  speaking  or  writing,  with 
some  abatement.  They  seldom  v\^ait  to  mature  a 
proposition,  but  e'en  bring  it  to  market  in  the  green 
ear.  They  delight  to  impart  their  defective  dis- 
coveries as  they  arise,  without  waiting  for  their  full 
development.  They  are  no  systematizers,  and 
would  but  err  more  by  attempting  it.  Their 
minds,  as  I  said  before,  are  suggestive  merely. 
The  brain  of  a  true  Caledonian  (if  I  am  not  mis- 


Umperfcct  S^mpatbiea.  103 

taken)  is  constituted  upon  quite  a  different  plan. 
His  IMinerva  is  born  in  panoply.  You  are  never 
admitted  to  see  his  ideas  in  their  growth, — if,  in- 
deed, they  do  grow,  and  are  not  rather  put  together 
upon  principles  of  clock-work.  You  never  catch 
his  mind  in  an  undress.  He  never  hints  or  sug- 
gests any  thing,  but  unlades  his  stock  of  ideas  in 
perfect  order  and  completeness.  He  brings  his 
total  wealth  into  company,  and  gravely  unpacks 
it.  His  riches  are  always  about  him.  He  never 
stoops  to  catch  a  glittering  something  in  your 
presence  to  share  it  with  you,  before  he  quite 
knows  wdiether  it  be  true  touch  or  not.  You  can- 
not cry  halves  to  any  thing  that  he  finds.  He 
does  not  find,  but  bring.  You  never  witness  his 
first  apprehension  of  a  thing.  His  understanding 
is  always  at  its  meridian, — 3'ou  never  see  the  first 
dawn,  the  early  streaks.  He  has  no  falterings  of 
self-suspicion.  Surmises,  guesses,  misgivings, 
half-intuitions,  semi-consciousnesses,  partial  illu- 
minations, dim  instincts,  embryo  conceptions, 
have  no  place  in  his  brain  or  vocabulary.  The  twi- 
light of  dubiety  never  falls  upon  him.  Is  he  or- 
thodox— he  has  no  doubts.  Is  he  an  infidel — he 
has  none  either.  Between  the  affirmative  and  the 
negative  there  is  no  border-land  with  him.  You 
cannot  hover  with  him  upon  the  confines  of  truth, 
or  wander  in  the  maze  of  a  probable  argument. 
He  always  keeps  the  path.  You  cannot  make 
excursions  with  him — for  he  sets  you  right.  His 
taste  never  fluctuates.  His  morality  never  abates. 
He  cannot  compromise,  or  understand  middle 
actions.  There  can  be  but  a  right  and  a  wrong. 
His  conversation  is  as  a  book.  His  affirmations 
have   the  sanctity  of  an  oath.     You  must   speak 


104  B66a^s  ot  JElia. 

upon  the  square  with  him.  He  stops  a  metaphor 
like  a  suspected  person  in  an  enemy's  country. 
*'  A  healthy  book  !  " — said  one  of  his  countrymen 
to  me,  who  had  ventured  to  give  that  appellation 
to  "  John  Buncle," — "  Did  I  catch  rightly  what 
you  said  ?  I  have  heard  of  a  man  in  health,  and  of 
a  healthy  state  of  body,  but  I  do  not  see  how  that 
epithet  can  be  properly  applied  to  a  book. "  Above 
all,  you  must  beware  of  indirect  expressions  be- 
fore a  Caledonian.  Clap  an  extinguisher  upon 
your  irony,  if  you  are  unhappily  blest  with  a  vein 
of  it.  Remember  you  are  upon  your  oath.  I 
have  a  print  of  a   graceful  female  after  Leonardo 

da  Vinci,   which  I  was  showing  off  to  ]\Ir.  . 

After  he  had  examined  it  minutely,  I  ventured  to 
ask  him  how  he  liked  my  beauty  (a  foolish  name 
it  goes  by  among  my  friends), — when  he  very 
gravely  assured  me  that  "  he  had  considerable 
repect  for  my  character  and  talents,"  [so  he  was 
pleased  to  say,]  "  but  had  not  given  himself  much 
thought  about  the  degree  of  my  personal  preten- 
sions." The  misconception  staggered  me,  but  did 
not  seem  much  to  disconcert  him.  Persons  of 
this  nation  are  particularly  fond  of  affirming  a 
truth — which  nobody  doubts.  They  do  not  so 
properly  affirm,  as  annunciate  it.  They  do  in- 
deed appear  to  have  such  a  love  of  truth  (as  if, 
like  virtue,  it  were  valuable  for  itself),  that  all 
truth  becomes  equally  valuable,  whether  the  prop- 
osition that  contains  it  be  new  or  old,  disputed, 
or  such  as  is  impossible  to  become  a  subject  of  dis- 
putation. I  was  present  not  long  since  at  a  party 
of  North  Britons,  where  a  son  of  Burns  was  ex- 
pected, and  happened  to  drop  a  silly  expression 
(in  my  South  British  way),  that  I  wished  it  were 


IFmpertect  Sgmpatbtes.  105 

the  father  instead  of  the  son, — when  four  of  them 
started  up  at  once  to  inform  me  that  "  that  was 
impossible,  because  he  was  dead."  An  impracti- 
cable wish,  it  seems,  was  more  than  they  could 
conceive.  Swift  has  hit  off  this  part  of  their  char- 
acter, namely,  their  love  of  truth,  in  his  biting 
way,  but  with  an  illiberality  that  necessarily  con- 
fines the  passage  to  the  margin.  *  The  tediousness 
of  these  people  is  certainly  provoking.  I  wonder 
if  they  ever  tire  one  another  ?  In  my  early  life 
I  had  a  passionate  fondness  for  the  poetry  of 
Burns.  I  have  sometimes  foolishly  hoped  to  in- 
gratiate myself  with  his  countrymen  by  express- 
ing it.  But  I  have  always  found  that  a  true  Scot 
resents  your  admiration  of  his  compatriot,  even 
more  than  he  would  your  contempt  of  him.  The 
latter  he  imputes  to  your  "imperfect  acquaint- 
ance with  many  of  the  words  which  he  uses  "  ; 
and  the  same  objection  makes  it  a  presumption 
in  you  to  suppose  that  you  can  admire  him. 
Thomson  they  seem  to  have  forgotten.  Smol- 
lett they  have  neither  forgotten  nor  forgiven, 
for  his  delineation  of  Rory  and  his  companion, 
upon  their  first  introduction  to  our  metropolis. 
Speak  of  Smollett  as  a  great  genius,  and  they  will 
retort  upon  you  Humes  History  compared   with 

*■  There  are  some  people  who  think  they  sufficiently  acquit 
themselves,  and  entertain  their  company,  with  relating  facts 
of  no  consequence,  not  at  all  out  of  the  road  of  such  common 
incidents  as  happens  every  day  ;  and  this  I  have  observed 
more  frequently  among  the  Scots  than  any  other  nation,  who 
are  very  careful  not  to  omit  the  minutest  circumstances  of 
time  or  place  ;  which  kind  of  discourse,  if  it  were  not  a  little 
relieved  by  the  uncouth  terms  and  phrases,  as  well  as  accent 
and  gesture  peculiar  to  that  country,  would  be  hardly  toler- 
able.— Hints  tozvards  aji  Essav  on  Conversation. 


io6  JSssa^s  ot  Blia, 

/j/s    Continuation  of  it.     What  if  the  historian  had 
continued  ''  Humphrey  Clinker  "  ? 

I  have,  in  the  abstract,  no  disrespect  for  Jews. 
They  are  a  piece  of  stubborn  antiquity,  compared 
with  which  Stonehenge  is  in  its  nonage.  They 
date  beyond  the  Pyramids.  But  I  should  not  care 
to  be  in  habits  of  familiar  intercourse  with  any  of 
that  nation.  I  confess  that  I  have  not  the  nerves 
to  enter  their  synagogues.  Old  prejudices  cling 
about  me.  I  cannot  shake  off  the  story  of  Hugh 
of  Lincoln.  Centuries  of  injury,  contempt,  and 
hate,  on  the  one  side, — of  cloaked  revenge,  dis- 
simulation, and  hate  on  the  other, — between  our 
and  their  fathers,  must  and  ought  to  affect  the 
blood  of  the  children.  I  cannot  believe  it  can 
run  clear  and  kindly  yet ;  or  that  a  few  fine 
words,  such  as  candor,  liberality,  the  light  of  a 
nineteenth  century,  can  close  up  the  breaches  of 
so  deadly  a  disunion.  A  Hebrew  is  nowhere  con- 
genial to  me.  He  is  least  distasteful  on  'Change 
— for  the  mercantile  spirit  levels  all  distinctions, 
as  all  are  beauties  in  the  dark.  I  boldly  confess 
that  I  do  not  relish  the  approximation  of  Jew 
and  Christian,  which  has  become  so  fashion- 
able. The  reciprocal  endearments  have,  to  me, 
something  hypocritical  and  unnatural  in  them. 
I  do  not  like  to  see  the  Church  and  Synagogue  kiss- 
ing and  congeeing  in  awkward  postures  of  an 
affected  civility.  If  /hey  are  converted,  why  do 
they  not  come  over  to  us  altogether.?  Why  keep 
up  a  form  of  separation,  when  the  life  of  it  is  fled  ? 
If  they  can  sit  with  us  at  table,  why  do  they  kick 
at  our  cookery  ?  I  do  not  understand  these  half 
convertites.  Jews  christianizing — Christians  ju- 
daizing — puzzle  me.     I  like  fish  or  flesh.     A  mod- 


ITmpertect  S^mpatbtes*  107 

erate  Jew  is  a  more  confounding  piece  of  anomaly 
than  a  wet  Quaker.  The  spirit  of  the  synagogue 
is  essentially  separative.  B.  would  have  been 
more  in  keeping  if  he  had  abided  by  the  faith  of 
his  forefathers.  There  is  a  fine  scorn  in  his  face, 
which  nature  meant  to  be  of — Christians,  l^he 
Hebrew  spirit  is  strong  in  him,  in  spite  of  his 
proselytism.  He  cannot  conquer  the  Shibboleth. 
How  it  breaks  out  when  he  sings,  "  The  Children 
of  Israel  passed  through  the  Red  Sea  ! "  The 
auditors,  for  the  moment,  are  as  Egyptians  to  him, 
and  he  rides  over  our  necks  in  triumph.  There 
is  no  mistaking  him.  B.  has  a  strong  expression 
of  sense  in  his  countenance,  and  it  is  confirmed  by 
his  singing.  The  foundation  of  his  vocal  excel- 
lence is  sense.  He  sings  with  understanding, 
as  Kemble  delivered  dialogue.  He  would  sing 
the  Commandments,  and  give  an  appropriate 
character  to  each  prohibition.  His  nation,  in 
general,  have  not  over-sensible  countenances. 
How  should  they .? — but  you  seldom  see  a  silly 
expression  among  them.  Gain,  and  the  pursuit 
of  gain,  sharpen  a  man's  visage.  I  never  heard 
of  an  idiot  being  born  among  them.  Some  admire 
the  Jewish  female  physiognomy,  I  admire  it — but 
with  trembling.  Jael  had  those  full  dark  inscru- 
table eyes. 

In  the  Negro  countenance  you  will  often  meet 
with  strong  traits  of  benignity.  I  have  felt  yearn- 
ings of  tenderness  towards  some  of  those  faces — ■ 
or  rather  masks — that  have  looked  out  kindly 
upon  one  in  casual  encounters  in  the  streets  and 
highways.  I  love  what  Fuller  beautifully  calls — • 
these  "images  of  God  cut  in  ebony."  But  I 
should  not  like  to   associate  with  them,  to  share 


io8  B66aB3  of  BHa. 

my  meals  and  my  goodnights  with  them — because 
they  are  black. 

1  love  Quaker  ways,  and  Quaker  worship.  I 
venerate  the  Quaker  principles.  It  does  me  good 
for  the  rest  of  the  day  when  I  meet  any  of  their 
people  in  my  path.  When  I  am  ruffled  or  dis- 
turbed by  any  occurrence,  the  sight  or  quiet  voice 
of  a  Quaker  acts  upon  me  as  a  ventilator,  lighten- 
ing the  air,  and  taking  oft  a  load  from  the  bosom. 
But  I  cannot  like  the  Quakers  (as  Desdemona 
would  say)  "to  live  with  them.*'  I  am  all  over 
sophisticated — with  humors,  fancies,  craving 
hourly  sympathy.  I  must  have  books,  pictures, 
theatres,  chit-chat,  scandal,  jokes,  ambiguities, 
and  a  thousand  whim-whams,  which  their  simpler 
taste  can  do  v/ithout.  1  should  starve  at  their 
primitive  banquet.  j\Iy  appetites  are  too  high  for 
the  salads  which  (according  to  Evelyn)  Eve 
dressed  for  the  angel,  my  gusto  too  excited 

To  sit  a  guest  with  Daniel  at  his  pulse. 

The  indirect  answers  which  Quakers  are  often 
found  to  return  to  a  question  put  to  them  may  be 
explained,  I  think,  without  the  vulgar  assumption 
that  they  are  more  given  to  evasion  and  equivo- 
cating than  other  people.  They  naturally  look 
to  their  words  more  carefully,  and  are  more 
cautious  of  committing  themselves.  They  have 
a  peculiar  character  to  keep  up  on  this  head. 
They  stand  in  a  manner  upon  their  A^eracity.  A 
Quaker  is  by  law  exempted  from  taking  an  oath. 
The  custom  of  resorting  to  an  oath  in  extreme 
cases,  sanctified  as  it  is  by  all  religious  antiquity, 
is  apt  (it  must  be  confessed)  to  introduce  into  the 


ITmpertect  S^mpatbfes,  109 

laxer  sort  of  minds  the  notion  of  two  kinds  of 
truth — the  one  applicable  to  the  solemn  affairs  of 
justice,  and  the  other  to  the  common  proceedings 
of  daily  intercourse.  As  truth  bound  upon  the 
conscience  by  an  oath  can  be  but  truth,  so  in  the 
common  affirmations  of  the  shop  and  the  market- 
place a  latitude  is  expected,  and  conceded  upon 
questions  wanting  this  solemn  covenant.  Some- 
thing less  than  truth  satisfies.  It  is  common  to 
hear  a  person  say,  "You  do  not  expect  me  to 
speak  as  if  I  were  upon  my  oath. "  Hence  a  great 
deal  of  incorrectness  and  inadvertency,  short  of 
falsehood,  creeps  into  ordinary  conversation  ;  and 
a  kind  of  secondary  or  laic-truth  is  tolerated, 
where  clergy-truth, — oath-truth,  by  the  nature  of 
the  circumstances,  is  not  required.  A  Quaker 
knows  none  of  this  distinction.  His  simple  affir- 
mation being  received  upon  the  most  sacred  occa- 
sions, without  any  further  test,  stamps  a  value 
upon  the  words  which  he  is  to  use  ujDon  tlie  most 
indifferent  topics  of  life.  He  looks  to  them, 
naturally,  with  more  severity.  You  can  have  of 
him  no  more  than  his  word.  He  knows,  if  he  is 
caught  tripping  in  a  casual  expression,  he  forfeits, 
for  himself  at  least,  his  claim  to  the  invidious 
exemption.  He  knows  that  his  syllables  are 
weighed  ;  and  how  far  a  consciousness  of  this 
particular  watchfulness,  exerted  against  a  person, 
has  a  tendency  to  produce  indirect  answers,  and 
a  diverting  of  the  question  by  honest  means, 
might  be  illustrated,  and  the  practice  justified,  by 
a  more  sacred  example  than  is  proper  to  be 
adduced  on  this  occasion.  The  admirable  pres- 
ence of  mind,  which  is  notorious  in  Quakers  upon 
all  contingencies,  might  be  traced  to  this  imposed 


no  Bssa^s  ot  JElia, 

self-watchfulness,  if  it  did  not  seem  rather  an 
humble  and  secular  scion  of  that  old  stock  of 
religious  constancy,  which  never  bent  or  faltered 
in  the  Primitive  Friends,  or  gave  way  to  the  winds 
of  persecution,  to  the  violence  of  judge  or  accuser, 
under  trials  and  racking  examinations.  "You 
will  never  be  the  wiser,  if  I  sit  here  answering 
your  questions  till  midnight,"  said  one  of  those 
upright  Justicers  of  Penn,  who  had  been  putting 
law-cases  with  a  puzzling  subtlety.  "  Thereafter 
as  the  answers  may  be,"  retorted  the  Quaker. 
The  astonishing  composure  of  this  people  is  some- 
times ludicrously  displayed  in  lighter  instances. 
I  was  travelling  in  a  stage-coach  with  three  male 
Quakers,  buttoned  up  in  the  straightest  non-con- 
formity of  their  sect.  We  stopped  to  bait  at  An- 
dover,  where  a  meal,  partly  tea  apparatus,  partly 
supper,  was  set  before  us.  INIy  friends  confined 
themselves  to  the  tea-table.  I,  in  my  way,  took 
supper.  When  the  landlady  brought  in  the  bill, 
the  eldest  of  my  companions  discovered  that  she 
had  charged  for  both  meals.  This  was  resisted. 
Mine  hostess  was  very  clamorous  and  positive. 
Some  mild  arguments  were  used  on  the  part  of 
the  Quakers,  for  which  the  heated  mind  of  the 
good  lady  seemed  by  no  means  a  fit  recipient. 
The  guard  came  in  with  his  usual  peremptory 
notice.  The  Quakers  pulled  out  their  money  and 
formally  tendered  it — so  much  for  tea, — I  in  hum- 
ble imitation  tendering  mine — for  the  supper 
which  I  had  taken.  She  would  not  relax  in  her 
demand.  So  they  all  three  quietly  put  up  their 
silver,  as  did  myself,  and  marched  out  of  the 
room,  the  eldest  and  gravest  going  first,  with 
myself  closing  up  the  rear,  who  thought  I  could 


IFrnpertect  S^mpatbics.  m 

not  do  better  than  follow  the  example  of  such 
grave  and  warrantable  personages.  We  got  in. 
The  steps  went  up.  The  coach  drove  off.  The 
murmurs  of  mine  hostess  not  very  indistinctly  or 
ambiguously  pronounced,  became  after  a  time 
inaudible, — and  now  my  conscience,  which  the 
whimsical  scene  had  for  a  while  suspended,  be- 
ginning to  give  some  twitches,  I  waited,  in  the 
hope  that  some  justification  would  be  offered  by 
these  serious  persons  for  the  seeming  injustice  of 
their  conduct.  To  my  great  surprise,  not  a  sylla- 
ble was  dropped  on  the  subject.  They  sat  as 
mute  as  at  a  meeting.  At  length  the  eldest  of 
them  broke  silence  by  inquiring  of  his  next  neigh- 
bor, "  Hast  thee  heard  how  indigoes  go  at  the 
India  House  ?  *' — and  the  question  operated  as  a 
soporitic  on  my  moral  feeling  as  far  as  Exeter. 


WITCHES  AND  OTHER  NIGHT  FEARS. 


We  are  too  hasty  when  we  set  down  our  an- 
cestors in  the  gross  for  fools,  for  the  monstrous 
inconsistencies  (as  they  seem  to  us)  involved  in 
their  creed  of  witchcraft.  In  the  relations  of  this 
visible  world  we  find  them  to  have  been  as 
rational  and  shrewd  to  detect  an  historic  anomaly 
as  ourselves.  But  when  once  the  invisible  world 
was  supposed  to  be  opened,  and  the  lawless 
agency  of  bad  spirits  assumed,  what  measures  of 
probability,  of  decency,  of  fitness,  or  proportion — 
of  that  which  distinguishes  the  likely  from  the 
palpable  absurd — could  they  have  to  guide  them 
in  the  rejection  or  admission  of  any  particular 
testimony.?  That  maidens  pined  away,  wasting 
inwardly  as  their  waxen  images  consumed  before 
a  fire — that  corn  was  lodged,  and  cattle  lamed — 
that  whirlwinds  uptore  in  diabolic  revelry  the 
oaks  of  the  forests — or  that  spits  and  kettles  only 
danced  a  fearful  innocent  vagary  about  some  rus- 
tic's kitchen  when  no  wind  was  stirring, — were 
all  equally  probable  where  no  law  of  agency  was 
understood.  That  the  prince  of  the  powres  of 
darkness,  passing  by  the  flower  and  pomp  of  the 
earth,  should  lay  preposterous  siege  to  the  weak 
fantasy  of  indigent  eld — has  neither  likelihood  nor 
unlikelihood  a  priori  to  us,  who  have  no  measure 
to  guess  at  his  policy,  or  standard  to  estimate 

112 


mucbes  anD  ©tber  laigbt  jfears,        113 

what  rate  those  anile  souls  may  fetch  in  the  devil's 
market.  Nor,  when  the  wicked  are  expressly- 
symbolized  by  a  goat,  was  it  to  be  wondered  at 
so  much,  that  he  should  come  sometimes  in  that 
body  and  assert  his  metaphor.  That  the  inter- 
course was  opened  at  all  between  both  worlds, 
was  perhaps  the  mistake, — but  that  once  assumed, 
I  see  no  reason  for  disbelieving  one  attested  story 
of  this  nature  more  than  another  on  the  score  of 
absurdity.  There  is  no  law  to  judge  of  the  law- 
less, or  canon  by  which  a  dream  may  be  criti- 
cised. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  I  could  not  have 
existed  in  the  days  of  received  witchcraft ;  that  I 
could  not  have  slept  in  a  village  where  one  of 
those  reputed  hags  dwelt.  Our  ancestors  were 
bolder  or  more  obtuse.  Amidst  the  universal 
belief  that  these  wretches  were  in  league  with  the 
author  of  all  evil,  holding  hell  tributary  to  their 
muttering,  no  simple  Justice  of  the  Peace  seems 
to  have  scrupled  issuing,  or  silly  Headborough 
serving,  a  warrant  upon  them, — as  if  they  should 
subpoena  Satan  !  Prospero  in  his  boat,  with  hie 
books  and  wand  about  him,  suffers  himself  to  be 
conveyed  away  at  the  mercy  of  his  enemies  to  an 
unknown  island.  He  mio^ht  have  raised  a  storm 
or  two,  we  think,  on  the  passage.  His  acquies- 
cence is  in  exact  analogy  to  the  non-resistance  of 
witches  to  the  constituted  powers.  What  stops 
the  Fiend  in  Spenser  from  tearing  Guyon  to 
pieces, — or  who  had  made  it  a  condition  of  his 
prey,  that  Guyon  must  take  assay  of  the  glorious 
bait, — we  have  no  guess.  We  do  not  know  the 
laws  of  that  country. 

From  my  childhood  I  was  extremely  inquisitive 
8 


114  Bssa^s  of  :!3lia. 

about  witches  and  witch-stories.  My  maid,  and 
more  legendary  aunt,  supplied  me  with  good 
store.  But  I  shall  mention  the  accident  which 
directed  my  curiosity  originally  into  this  channel. 
In  my  father's  book-closet,  the  "History  of  the 
Bible "  by  Stackhouse  occupied  a  distinguished 
station.  The  pictures  with  which  it  abounds — 
one  of  the  ark,  in  particular,  and  another  of  Solo- 
mon's temple,  delineated  with  all  the  fidelity  of 
ocular  admeasurepient,  as  if  the  artist  had  been 
upon  the  spot — attracted  my  childish  attention. 
There  was  a  picture,  too,  of  the  Witch  raising  up 
Samuel,  which  I  wish  that  I  had  never  seen.  We 
shall  come  to  that  hereafter.  Stackhouse  is  in  two 
huge  tomes, — and  there  was  a  pleasure  in  remov- 
ing folios  of  that  magnitude,  which,  with  infinite 
straining,  was  as  much  as  I  could  manage,  from 
the  situation  which  thoy  occupied  upon  an  upper 
shelf.  I  have  not  met  with  the  work  from  that 
time  to  this,  but  I  remember  it  consisted  of  Old 
Testament  stories,  orderly  set  down,  with  the 
objection  appended  to  each  story,  and  the  solution 
of  the  objection  regularly  tacked  to  that.  The 
objection  was  a  summary  of  whatever  difficulties 
had  been  opposed  to  th3  credibility  of  the  history, 
by  the  shrewdness  of  ancient  or  modern  infidelity, 
drawn  up  with  an  almost  complimentary  excess 
of  candor.  The  solution  was  brief,  modest,  and 
satisfactory.  The  bane  and  antidote  were  both 
before  you.  To  doubts  so  put,  and  so  quashed, 
there  seemed  to  be  an  end  forever.  The  dragon 
lay  dead,  for  the  foot  of  the  veriest  babe  to  trample 
on.  But — like  as  was  rather  feared  than  realized 
from  that  slain  monster  in  Spenser — from  the 
womb  of  those  crushed  errors  young  dragonets 


mitcbcs  anD  ©tber  migbt  jfears.        115 

would  creep,  exceeding-  the  prowess  of  so  tender 
a  Saint  Georjj^e  as  myself  to  vanquish.  The  habit 
of  expecting  objections  to  every  passage,  set  me 
upon  starting  more  objections,  for  the  glory  of 
finding  a  solution  of  my  own  for  them.  I  became 
staggered  and  perplexed,  a  skeptic  in  long  coats. 
The  pretty  Bible  stories  which  I  had  read,  or 
heard  read  in  church,  lost  their  purity  and  sin- 
cerity of  impression,  and  were  turned  into  so 
many  historic  or  chronologic  theses  to  be  de- 
fended against  whatever  impugners.  I  was  not 
to  disbelieve  them,  but — the  next  thing  to  that — I 
was  to  be  quite  sure  that  some  one  or  other  would 
or  had  disbelieved  them.  Next  to  making  a  child 
an  infidel,  is  the  letting  him  know  that  there  are 
infidels  at  all.  Credulity  is  the  man's  weakness, 
but  the  child's  strength.  O  how  ugly  sound 
Scriptural  doubts  from  the  mouth  of  a  babe  and  a 
suckling !  I  should  have  lost  myself  in  these 
mazes,  and  have  pined  away,  I  think,  with  such 
unfit  sustenance  as  these  husks  afforded,  but  for  a 
fortunate  piece  of  ill-fortune,  which  about  this 
time  befell  me.  Turning  over  the  picture  of  the 
ark  with  too  much  haste,  I  unhappily  made  a 
breach  in  its  ingenious  fabric, — driving  my  incon- 
siderate fingers  right  through  the  two  larger 
quadrupeds — the  elephant,  and  the  camel — that 
stare  (as  well  they  might)  out  of  the  last  two  win- 
dows next  the  steerage  in  that  unique  piece  of 
naval  architecture.  Stackhouse  was  henceforth 
locked  up,  and  became  an  interdicted  treasure. 
With  the  book,  the  objeciions  and  solutions  gradu- 
ally cleared  out  of  my  head,  and  have  seldom  re- 
turned since  in  any  force  to  trouble  me.  But 
there  was  one  impression  which  I  had  imbibed 


ii6  Essays  of  JSlia. 

from  Stackhouse,  which  no  lock  or  bar  could  shut 
out,  and  which  was  destined  to  try  my  childish 
nerves  rather  more  seriously.  That  detestable 
picture  ! 

I  was  dreadfully  alive  to  nervous  terrors.  The 
nighttime,  solitude,  and  the  dark,  were  my  hell. 
The  sufferings  I  endured  in  this  nature  would  jus- 
tify the  expression.  I  never  laid  my  head  on  my 
pillow,  I  suppose,  from  the  fourth  to  the  seventh 
or  eighth  year  of  my  life — so  far  as  memory  serves 
in  things  so  long  ago — without  an  assurance, 
which  realized  its  own  prophecy,  of  seeing  some 
frightful  spectre.  Be  old  Stackhouse  then  ac- 
quitted in  part,  if  I  say,  that  to  his  picture  of  the 
Witch  raising  up  Samuel — (O  that  old  man  cov- 
ered with  a  mantle  !) — I  owe,  not  my  midnight 
terrors,  the  hell  of  my  infancy,  but  the  shape 
and  manner  of  their  visitation.  It  was  he  who 
dressed  up  for  me  a  hag  that  nightly  sat  upon  my 
pillow, — a  sure  bed-fellow,  when  my  aunt  or  my 
maid  was  far  from  me.  All  day  long,  while  the 
book  was  permitted  me,  I  dreamed  waking  over 
his  delineation,  and  at  night  (if  I  may  use  so  bold 
an  expression)  awoke  into  sleep,  and  found  the 
vision  true.  I  durst  not,  even  in  the  daylight, 
once  enter  the  chamber  where  I  slept,  without 
my  face  turned  to  the  window,  aversely  from  the 
bed  where  my  witch-ridden  pillow  was.  Parents 
do  not  know  what  they  do  when  they  leave  ten- 
der babes  alone  to  go  to  sleep  in  the  dark.  The 
feeling  about  for  a  friendly  arm — the  hoping  for 
a  familiar  voice — when  they  wake  screaming — 
and  find  none  to  soothe  them, — what  a  terrible 
shaking  it  is  to  their  poor  nerves  !  The  keeping 
them  up  to  midnight,  through  candlelight  and  the 


llClftcbes  anD  ©tber  Bigbt  ^cars.        1 1 7 

unwholesome  hours,  as  they  are  called — would,  I 
am  satisfied,  in  a  medical  point  of  view,  prove 
the  better  caution.  That  detestable  picture,  as  I 
have  said,  gave  the  fashion  to  my  dreams, — if 
dreams  they  were, — for  the  scene  of  them  was 
invariably  the  room  in  which  I  lay.  Had  I  never 
met  with  the  picture,  the  fears  would  have  come 
self-pictured  in  some  shape  or  other, — 

Headless  bear,  black  man,  or  ape, — 

but,  as  it  was,  my  imaginations  took  that  form. 
It  is  not  book,  or  picture,  or  the  stories  of  foolish 
servants  which  create  these  terrors  in  children. 
They  can  at  most  but  give  them  a  direction. 
Dear  little  T.  H.,  who  of  all  children  has  been 
brought  up  with  the  most  scrupulous  exclusion 
of  every  taint  of  superstition — who  was  never 
allowed  to  hear  of  goblin  or  apparition,  or 
scarcely  to  be  told  of  bad  men.  or  to  read  or  hear 
of  any  distressing  story, — finds  all  this  world  of 
fear,  from  which  he  has  been  so  rigidly  excluded 
ab  extra,  in  his  own  ''thick-coming  fancies"; 
and  from  his  little  midnight  pillow,  this  nurse- 
child  of  optimism  will  start  at  shapes,  unborrowed 
of  tradition,  in  sweats  to  which  the  reveries  of  the 
cell-damned  murderer  are  tranquiUity. 

Gorgons,  and  Hydras  and  Chimeras  dire — 
stones  of  Calaeno  and  the  Harpies — may  reproduce 
themselves  in  the  brain  of  superstition, — but  they 
were  there  before.  They  are  transcripts,  types, — 
the  archetypes  are  in  us,  and  eternal.  How  else 
should  the  recital  of  that,  which  we  know  in  a 
waking  sense  to  be  false,  come  to  affect  us  at 
all  .'—or 


ii8  B65a^6  of  iSlta. 

Names,  whose  sense  we  see  not, 
Fray  us  with  things  that  be  not  ? 

Is  it  that  we  naturally  conceive  terror  from  such 
objects,  considered  in  their  capacity  of  being  able 
to  inflict  upon  us  bodily  injury  ?  O,  least  of  all  ! 
These  terrors  are  of  older  standing.  They  date 
beyond  body, — or,  without  the  body  they  would 
have  been  the  same.  All  the  cruel,  tormenting, 
defined  devils  in  Dante, — tearing,  mangling, 
choking,  stifling,  scorching  demons, — are  they 
one  half  so  fearful  to  the  spirit  of  a  man  as  the 
simple  idea  of  a  spirit  unembodied  following 
him — 

Like  one  that  on  a  lonesome  road 

Doth  walk  in  fear  and  dread, 

And  having  once  turn'd  round,  walks  on 

And  turns  no  more  his  head ; 

Because  he  knows  a  frightful  fiend 

Doth  close  behind  him  tread.* 

That  the  kind  of  fear  here  treated  of  is  purely 
spiritual, — that  it  is  strong  in  proportion  as  it  is 
objectless  upon  earth, — that  it  predominates  in 
the  period  of  sinless  infancy, — are  difficulties  the 
solution  of  which  might  afford  some  probable 
insight  into  our  ante-mundane  condition,  and  a 
peep  at  least  into  the  shadowland  of  pre-exist- 
ence. 

]\Iy  night  fancies  have  long  ceased  to  be  afflict- 
ive. I  confess  an  occasional  nightmare  ;  but  I 
do  not,  as  in  early  youth,  keep  a  stud  of  them. 
Fiendish  faces,  with  the  extinguished  taper,  will 
come  and  look  at  me ;  but  I  know  them  for  mock- 
eries, even  while  I   cannot   elude   their  presence, 

*Mr.  Coleridge's  "  Ancient  Mariner." 


Illlitcbes  anD  ©tber  IFligbt  ^ears.        119 

and  I  fight  and  grapple  with  them.  For  the  credit 
of  my  imagination,  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  say- 
how  tame  and  prosaic  my  dreams  are  grown. 
They  are  never  romantic,  seldom  even  rural. 
They  are  of  architecture  and  of  buildings, — cities 
abroad,  which  I  have  never  seen  and  hardly  have 
hoped  to  see.  I  have  traversed,  for  the  seeming 
length  of  a  natural  day,  Rome,  Amsterdam,  Paris, 
Lisbon — their  churches,  palaces,  squares,  market- 
places, shops,  suburbs,  ruins,  with  an  inexpressi- 
ble sense  of  delight — a  map-like  distinctness  of 
trace — and  a  daylight  vividness  of  vision,  that 
was  all  but  being  awake.  I  have  formerly  trav- 
elled among  the  Westmoreland  fells,  my  highest 
Alps, — but  they  are  objects  too  mighty  for  the 
grasp  of  my  dreaming  recognition  ;  and  I  have 
again  and  again  awoke  with  ineffectual  struggles 
of  the  inner  eye,  to  make  out  a  shape  in  any  way 
whatever,  of  Helvellyn.  Methought  I  was  in  that 
country,  but  the  mountains  were  gone.  The 
poverty  of  my  dreams  mortifies  me.  There  is 
Coleridge,  at  his  will  can  conjure  up  icy  domes, 
and  pleasure-houses  for  Kubla  Khan,  and  Abys- 
sinian maids,  and  songs   of  Abara,  and  caverns, 

Where  Alph,  the  sacred  river,  runs, 

to  solace  his  night  solitudes, — when  I  cannot 
muster  a  fiddle.  Barry  Cornwall  has  his  tritons 
and  his  nereids  gambolling  before  him  in  noc- 
turnal visions,  and  proclaiming  sons  born  to 
Neptune, — when  my  stretch  of  imaginative  activ- 
ity can  hardly,  in  the  night  season,  raise  up  the 
ghost  of  a  fish-wife.  To  set  my  failures  in  some- 
what a  mortifying  light, — it  v/as  after  reading  the 


I20  B66a^s  ot  Blfa. 

noble  Dream  of  this  poet,  that  my  fancy  ran  strong 
upon  these  marine  spectra  :  and  the  poor  plastic 
power,  such  as  it  is,  within  me  set  to  work,  to 
humor  my  folly  in  a  sort  of  dream  that  very  night. 
Methought  I  was  upon  the  ocean  billows  at  some 
sea  nuptials,  riding  and  mounted  high,  with  the 
customary  train  sounding  their  conches  before 
me  (I  myself,  you  may  be  sure,  the  leading  god), 
and  joUily  we  went  careering  over  the  main,  till 
just  where  Ino  Leucothea  should  have  greeted  me 
(I  think  it  was  Ino)  with  a  white  embrace,  the 
billows  gradually  subsiding,  fell  from  a  sea-rough- 
ness to  a  sea-calm,  and  thence  to  a  river  motion, 
and  that  river  (as  happens  in  the  familiarization 
of  dreams)  was  no  other  than  the  gentle  Thames, 
which  landed  me  in  the  wafture  of  a  placid  wave 
or  two,  alone,  safe,  and  inglorious,  somewhere  at 
the  foot  of  Lambeth  palace. 

The  degree  of  the  soul's  creativeness  in  sleep 
might  furnish  no  whimsical  criterion  of  the  quan- 
tum of  poetical  faculty  resident  in  the  same  soul 
waking.  An  old  gentleman,  a  friend  of  mine,  and 
a  humorist,  used  to  carry  this  notion  so  far,  that 
when  he  saw  any  stripling  of  his  acquaintance 
ambitious  of  becoming  a  poet,  his  first  question 
Vv^ould  be  :  "Young  man,  what  sort  of  dreams 
have  you.-^"  I  have  so  much  faith  in  my  old 
friend's  theory,  that  when  I  feel  that  idle  vein 
returning  upon  me,  I  presently  subside  into  my 
proper  clement  of  prose,  remembering  those  elud- 
ing nereids,  and  that  inauspicious  inland  landing. 


VALENTINE'S  DAY. 


Hail  to  thy  returning  festival,  old  Bishop  Valen- 
tine. Great  is  thy  name  in  the  rubric,  thou  vener- 
able Archflamen  of  Hymen  !  Immortal  Go-be- 
tween ;  who  and  what  manner  of  person  art  thou  ? 
Art  thou  but  a  name,  typifying  the  restless  prin- 
ciple which  impels  poor  humans  to  seek  perfection 
in  union  ?  or  wert  thou  indeed  a  mortal  prelate, 
with  thy  tippit  and  the  rochet,  thy  apron  on,  and 
decent  lawn  sleeves  ?  Mysterious  personage  ! 
like  unto  thee,  assuredly,  there  is  no  other  mitred 
father  in  the  calendar  ;  not  Jerome,  nor  Ambrose, 
nor  Cyril  ;  nor  the  consigner  of  undipt  infants  to 
eternal  torments,  Austin,  whom  all  mothers  hate  ; 
nor  he  who  hated  all  mothers,  Origen  ;  nor  Bishop 
Bull,  nor  Archbishop  Parker,  nor  Whitgift.  Thou 
comest  attended  with  thousands  and  ten  thousands 
of  little  Loves,  and  the  air  is 

Brush'd  with  the  hiss  of  rustling  wings. 

Singing  Cupids  are  thy  choristers  and  thy  precen- 
tors ;  and  instead  of  the  crosier,  the  mystical 
arrow  is  borne  before  thee. 

In  other  words,  this  is  the  day  on  which  those 
charming  little  missives,  ycleped  Valentines,  cross 
and  inter-cross   each   other  at  every   street    and 

121 


122  3£56a^s  of  }£lla. 

turning.  The  weary  and  all  forespent  two-penny 
postman  sinks  beneath  a  load  of  delicate  embar- 
rassments, not  his  own.  It  is  scarcely  credible 
to  what  an  extent  this  ephemeral  courtship  is  car- 
ried on  in  this  loving  town,  to  the  great  enrich- 
ment of  porters,  and  detriment  of  knockers  and 
bell-wires.  In  these  little  visual  interpretations, 
no  emblem  is  so  common  as  the  heart — that  little 
three-cornered  exponent  of  all  our  hopes  and 
fears, — the  bestuck  and  bleeding  heart ;  it  is 
twisted  and  tortured  into  more  allegories  and  af- 
fectations than  an  opera-hat.  What  authority  we 
have  in  history  or  mythology  for  placing  the  head- 
quarters and  metropolis  of  God  Cupid  in  this 
anatomical  seat  rather  than  in  any  other,  is  not 
very  clear ;  but  we  have  got  it,  and  it  will  serve 
as  well  as  any  other.  Else  we  might  easily  im- 
agine, upon  some  other  system  which  might 
have  prevailed  for  any  thing  which  our  pathology 
knows  to  the  contrary,  a  lover  addressing  his 
mistress,  in  perfect  simplicity  of  feeling  :  "  Mad- 
am, my  liver  and  fortune  are  entirely  at  your  dis- 
posal'"' ;  or  putting  a  delicate  question  :  "Aman- 
da, have  you  a  nudriff  io  bestow.''"  But  custom 
has  settled  these  things,  and  awarded  the  seat  of 
sentiment  to  the  aforesaid  triangle,  while  its  less 
fortunate  neiQfhbors  wait  at  animal  and  anatom- 
ical  distance. 

Not  many  sounds  in  life,  and  I  include  all  urban 
and  all  rural  sounds,  exceed  in  interest  a  knock  at 
the  door.  It ' '  gives  a  very  echo  to  the  throne  where 
Hope  is  seated."  But  its  issues  seldom  answer  to 
this  oracle  within.  It  is  so  seldom  that  just  the 
person  we  want  to  see  comes.  But  of  all  the  clam- 
orous visitations  the  welcomest  in  expectation  is 


li)alentlne'9  2)a^.  123 

the  sound  that  ushers  in,  or  seems  to  usher  in,  a 
Valentine.  As  the  raven  himself  was  hoarse  that 
announced  the  fatal  entrance  of  Duncan,  so  the 
knock  of  the  postman  on  this  day  is  light,  airy, 
confident,  and  befitting  one  that  bringeth  good 
tidings.  It  is  less  mechanical  than  on  other  days. 
You  will  say  :  **  That  is  not  the  post,  I  am  sure." 
Visions  of  Love,  of  Cupids,  of  Hymens  ! — delight- 
ful eternal  commonplaces,  which  "having  been 
will  always  be  "  ;  which  no  schoolboy  nor  school- 
man can  write  away  ;  having  your  irreversible 
throne  in  the  fancy  and  affections, — what  are  your 
transports  when  the  happy  maiden,  opening  with 
careful  finger,  careful  not  to  break  the  emblematic 
seal,  bursts  upon  the  sight  of  some  well-designed 
allegory,  some  type,  some  youthful  fancy,  not 
without  verses — 

Lovers  all, 

A  madrigal, 

or  some  such  device  not  over  abundant  in  sense, 
— young  love  disclaims  it, — and  not  quite  silly, — 
something  between  wind  and  water,  a  chorus 
where  the  sheep  might  almost  join  the  shepherd, 
as  they  did,  or  as  I  apprehend  they  did,  in  Arcadia. 
All  Valentines  are  not  foolish,  and  I  shall  not 
easily  forget  thine,  my  kind  friend  (if  I  may  have 
leave  to  call  you  so)  E.  B.  E.  B.  lived  opposite 
a  young  maiden  whom  he  had  often  seen,  un- 
seen, from  his  parlor  window  in  C e  Street. 

She  was  all  joyousness  and  innocence,  and  just  of 
an  age  to  enjoy  receiving  a  Valentine,  and  just  of 
a  temper  to  bear  the  disappointment  of  missing 
one  with  good-humor.  E.  B.  is  an  artist  of  no 
common  powers  ;  in  the  fancy  parts  of  designing, 


124  IBss^^e  of  JSlia. 

perhaps  inferior  to  none  ;  his  name  is  known  at 
the  bottom  of  many  a  well-executed  vignette  in 
the  way  of  his  profession,  but  no  further  ;  for  E,  B. 
is  modest,  and  the  world  meets  nobody  half- 
way. E.  B.  meditated  how  he  could  repay  this 
young-  maiden  for  many  a  favor  which  she  had 
done  him  unknown  ;  for  when  a  kindly  face 
greets  us,  though  but  passing  by,  and  never  knows 
us  again,  nor  we  it,  we  should' feel  it  as  an  obli- 
gation ;  and  E.  B.  did.  This  good  artist  set 
himself  at  work  to  please  the  damsel.  It  was 
just  before  Valentine's  Day,  three  years  since. 
He  wrought,  unseen  and  unsuspected,  a  wondrous 
work.  We  need  not  say  it  was  on  the  finest  gilt 
paper  with  borders, — full,  not  of  comm^on  hearts 
and  heartless  allegory,  but  all  the  prettiest  stories 
of  love  from  Ovid,  and  older  poets  than  Ovid  (for 
E.  B.  is  a  scholar).  There  was  Pyramus  and 
Thisbe,  and  be  sure  Dido  was  not  forgot,  nor 
Hero  and  I<eander,  and  swans  more  than  sang  in 
Cayster,  with  mottoes  and  fanciful  devices  such 
as  beseemed — a  work,  in  short,  of  magic.  Iris 
dipt  the  woof.  This  on  Valentine's  eve  he  com- 
mended to  the  all-swallowing  indiscriminate 
orilice  (O  ignoble  trust  !)  of  the  common  post  ; 
but  the  humble  medium  did  its  duty,  and  from 
his  watchful  stand,  the  next  morning,  he  saw 
the  cheerful  messenger  knock,  and  by  and  by  the 
precious  charge  delivered.  He  saw,  unseen,  the 
happy  girl  unfold  the  Valentine,  dance  about, 
clap  her  hands,  as  one  after  one  the  pretty  em- 
blems unfolded  themselves.  She  danced  about, 
not  with  light  love  or  foolish  expectations,  for  she 
had  no  lover  ;  or,  if  she  had,  none  she  knew  that 
could  have  created  those  bright  images  which  de- 


tDalcntine'i?  Bag,  125 

lighted  her.  It  was  more  like  some  fairy  present,  a 
Godsend,  as  our  familiarly  pious  ancestors  termed 
a  benefit  received  where  the  benefactor  was  un- 
known. It  would  do  her  no  harm.  It  would  do 
her  good  forever  after.  It  is  good  to  love  the 
unknown.  I  only  give  this  as  a  specimen  of 
E.  B.  and  his  modest  way  of  doing  a  concealed 
kindness. 

Good-morrow  to  my  Valentine,  sings  poor 
Ophelia,  and  no  better  wish,  but  with  better  aus- 
pices, we  wish  to  all  faithful  lovers  who  are  too 
wise  to  despise  old  legends,  but  are  content  to 
rank  themselves  humble  diocesans  of  old  Bishop 
Valentine  and  his  true  church. 


MY  RELATIONS. 


I  AM  arrived  at  that  point  of  life  at  which  a  man 
may  account  it  a  blessing,  as  it  is  a  singularity, 
if  he  have  either  of  his  parents  surviving.  I  have 
not  that  felicity — and  sometimes  think  feelingly 
of  a  passage  in  Browne's  "Christian  Morals,"' 
where  he  speaks  of  a  man  that  hath  lived  sixty  or 
seventy  years  in  the  world,  "In  such  a  com- 
pass of  time,"  he  says,  "  a  man  may  have  a  close 
apprehension  what  it  is  to  be  forgotten  when  he 
hath  lived  to  find  none  who  could  remember  his 
father,  or  scarcely  the  friends  of  his  youth,  and 
may  sensibly  see  with  what  a  face  in  no  longer 
time  Oblivion  will  look  upon  himself." 

I  had  an  aunt,  a  dear  and  good  one.  She  was 
one  whom  single-blessedness  had  soured  to  the 
world.  She  often  used  to  say  that  I  was  the  only 
thing  in  it  which  she  loved,  and  when  she  thought 
I  was  quitting  it  she  grieved  over  me  with  a 
mother's  tears.  A  partiality  quite  so  exclusive 
my  reason  cannot  altogether  approve.  She  was 
from  morning  till  night  poring  over  good  books 
and  devotional  exercises.  Her  favorite  volumes 
were  "  Thomas  a  Kempis,"  in  Stanhope's  transla- 
tion, and  a  Roman  Catholic  Prayer-Book,  with 
the  viatins  and  complines  regularly  set  down, — 
terms  which  I  was  at  that  time  too  young  to 
126 


/a^  IRetationg.  127 

understand.  She  persisted  in  reading  them,  al- 
though admonished  daily  concerning  their  Papis- 
tical tendency,  and  went  to  church  every  Sabbath, 
as  a  good  Protestant  should  do.  These  were  the 
only  books  she  studied,  though  I  think  at  one 
period  of  her  life  she  told  me  she  had  read,  with 
great  satisfaction,  the  ''Adventures  of  an  Unfor- 
tunate Young  Nobleman.''  Finding  the  door  of 
the  chapel  in  Essex  Street  open  one  day, — it  was 
in  the  infancy  of  that  heresy, — she  went  in,  liked 
the  sermon  and  the  manner  of  worship,  and  fre- 
quented it  at  intervals  for  some  time  after.  She 
came  not  for  doctrinal  points,  and  never  missed 
them.  With  some  little  asperities  in  her  constitu- 
tion, which  I  have  above  hinted  at,  she  was  a 
steadfast,  friendly  being,  and  a  fine  old  Christian. 
She  was  a  woman  of  strong  sense,  and  a  shrewd 
mind — extraordinary  at  a  repartee,  one  of  the  few 
occasions  of  her  breaking  silence — else  she  did 
not  much  value  wit.  The  only  secular  employ- 
ment I  remember  to  have  seen  her  engaged  in 
was  the  splitting  of  French  beans,  and  dropping 
them  into  a  china  basin  of  fair  water.  The  odor 
of  those  tender  vegetables  to  this  day  comes  back 
upon  my  sense,  redolent  of  soothing  recollections. 
Certainly  it  is  the  most  delicate  of  culinary  opera- 
tions. 

I\Iale  aunts,  as  somebody  calls  them,  I  had 
none — to  remember.  By  the  uncle's  side  I  may 
be  said  to  have  been  born  an  orphan.  Brother 
or  sister  I  never  had  any — to  know  them.  A 
sister,  I  think,  that  should  have  been  Elizabeth, 
died  in  both  our  infancies.  What  a  comfort,  or 
what  a  care,  may  I  not  have  missed  in  her  !  But 
I  have  cousins  sprinkled  about  in  Hertfordshire, — 


128  iBB3^>Q3*ot  :EUa, 

besides  /ivo,  with  whom  I  have  been  all  my  life 
in  habits  of  the  closest  intimacy,  and  whom  1  may 
term  cousins  par  exce//e?ice.  These  are  James 
and  Bridget  Elia.  They  are  older  than  myself  by 
twelve,  and  ten  years  ;  and  neither  of  them  seem 
disposed,  in  matters  of  advice  and  guidance,  to 
waive  any  of  the  prerogatives  which  primogeni- 
ture confers.  May  they  continue  still  in  the 
same  mind  ;  and  when  they  shall  be  seventy-five, 
and  seventy-three  years  old  (I  cannot  spare  them 
sooner),  persist  in  treating  me  in  my  grand  clima- 
teric  precisely  as  a  stripling,  or  younger  brother  ! 
James  is  an  inexplicable  cousin.  Nature  hath 
her  unities,  which  not  every  critic  can  penetrate, 
or,  if  we  feel,  we  cannot  explain  them.  The  pen 
of  Yorick,  and  of  none  since  his,  could  have 
drawn  J.  E.  entire, — those  fine  Shandean  lights 
and  shades,  which  make  up  his  story.  I  must 
limp  after  in  my  poor  antithetical  manner,  as  the 
fates  have  given  me  grace  and  talent.  J.  E.  then 
— to  the  eye  of  a  common  observer  at  least — 
seemeth  made  up  of  contradictory  principles. 
The  genuine  child  of  impulse,  the  frigid  philoso- 
pher of  prudence — the  phlegm  of  my  cousin's 
doctrine  is  invariably  at  war  with  his  tempera- 
ment, which  is  high  sanguine.  With  always 
some  fire-new  project  in  his  brain,  J.  E.  is  the 
systematic  opponent  of  innovation,  and  crier 
down  of  every  thing  that  has  not  stood  the  test 
of  age  and  experiment.  With  a  hundred  fine  no- 
tions chasing  one  another  hourly  in  his  fancy,  he 
is  startled  at  the  least  approach  to  the  romantic 
in  others  ;  and,  determined  by  his  own  sense  in 
everything,  commends  you  to  the  guidance  of 
common-sense  on  all   occasions.     With   a   touch 


jfiBS  1Relation0.  129 

of  the  eccentric  in  all  which  he  does,  or  says,  he 
is  only  anxious  that jyoii  should  not  commit  your- 
self by  doing  any  thing-  absurd  or  singular.  On 
my  once  letting  slip  at  table  that  I  was  not  fond 
of  a  certain  popular  dish,  he  begged  me  at  any 
rate  not  to  say  so — for  the  world  would  think  me 
mad.  He  disguises  a  passionate  fondness  for 
works  of  high  art  (whereof  he  hath  amassed  a 
choice  collection),  under  the  pretext  of  buying 
only  to  sell  again — that  his  enthusiasm  may  give 
no  encouragement  to  yours.  Yet,  if  it  were  so, 
why  does  that  piece  of  tender,  pastoral  Domeni- 
chino  hang  still  by  his  wall  ? — is  the  ball  of  his 
sight  much  more  dear  to  him  ?  or  what  picture- 
dealer  can  talk  like  him  ? 

Whereas  mankind  in  general  are  observed  to 
warp  their  speculative  conclusions  to  the  bent  of 
their  individual  humors,  /n's  theories  are  sure  to 
be  in  diametrical  opposition  to  his  constitution. 
He  is  courageous  as  Charles  of  Sweden,  upon 
instinct  ;  chary  of  his  person  upon  principle,  as  a 
travelling  Quaker.  He  has  been  preaching  up  to 
me,  all  my  life,  the  doctrine  of  bowing  to  the  great 
— the  necessity  of  forms,  and  manner,  to  a  man's 
getting  on  in  the  world.  He  himself  never  aims 
at  either,  that  I  can  discover, — and  has  a  spirit 
that  w^ould  stand  upright  in  the  presence  of  the 
Cham  of  Tartary.  It  is  pleasant  to  hear  him 
discourse  of  patience — extolling  it  as  the  truest 
wisdom, — and  to  see  him  during  the  last  seven 
minutes  that  his  dinner  is  getting  ready.  Nature 
never  ran  up  in  her  haste  a  more  restless  piece 
of  workmanship  than  when  she  moulded  this  im- 
petuous cousin, — and  Art  never  turned  out  a  more 
elaborate  orator  than  he  can  display  himself  to  be, 

9 


130  Bssa^s  of  BKa. 

upon  this  favorite  topic  of  the  advantages  of 
quiet  and  contentedness  in  the  state,  whatever  it 
be,  that  we  are  placed  in.  He  is  triumphant  on 
this  theme,  when  he  has  you  safe  in  one  of 
those  short  stages  that  ply  for  the  western  road, 
in  a  very  obstructing  manner,  at  the  foot  of  John 
Murray's  street, — where  you  get  in  when  it  is 
empty,  and  are  expected  to  wait  till  the  vehicle 
hath  completed  her  just  freight, — a  trying  three 
quarters  of  an  hour  to  some  people.  He  wonders 
at  your  fidgetiness,  — "  where  could  we  be  better 
than  we  are,  /hiis  sitting,  thus  consulting  P" — 
"prefers,  for  his  part,  a  state  of  rest  to  locomo- 
tion,"— with  an  eye  all  the  while  upon  the  coach- 
man,— till  at  length,  waxing  out  of  all  patience, 
at  your  want  of  it,  he  breaks  out  into  a  pathetic 
remonstrance  at  the  fellow  for  detaining  us  so 
long  over  the  time  which  he  had  professed,  and 
declares  peremptorily,  that  "  the  gentleman  in  the 
coach  is  determined  to  get  out,  if  he  does  not 
drive  on  that  instant." 

Very  quick  at  inventing  an  argument,  or  detect- 
ing a  sophistry,  he  is  incapable  of  attending  you 
in  any  chain  of  arguing.  Indeed,  he  makes  wild 
work  with  logic  ;  and  seems  to  jump  at  most  ad- 
mirable conclusions  by  some  process,  not  at  all 
akin  to  it.  Consonantly  enough  to  this,  he  hath 
been  heard  to  deny,  upon  certain  occasions,  that 
there  exists  such  a  faculty  at  all  in  man  as  rea- 
son ;  and  wondereth  how  man  came  first  to  have 
a  conceit  of  it, — enforcing  his  negation  with  all 
the  might  of  r^^so;?/;'/^  he  is  master  of  He  has 
some  speculative  notions  against  laughter,  and 
will  maintain  that  laughing  is  not  natural  to  hiyn, — 
when  peradventure  the  next    moment  his   lungs 


^S  IRclations.  131 

shall  crow  like  Chanticleer.  He  says  some  of  the 
best  things  in  the  world — and  declareth  that  wit 
is  his  aversion.  It  was  he  who  said,  upon  seeing 
the  Eton  boys  at  play  in  their  grounds,  —  Wha/  a 
pity  to  think,  that  these  fine  ingenuous  lads  in  a 
few  years  will  all  he  changed  i7ito  frivolous  Members 
of  Parliament ! 

His  youth  was  fiery,  glowing,  tempestuous, — 
and  in  age  he  discovereth  no  symptom  of  cooling. 
This  is  that  which  I  admire  in  him.  I  hate  peo- 
ple who  meet  Time  half-way.  I  am  for  no  com- 
promise with  that  inevitable  spoiler.  While  he 
lives,  J.  E.  will  take  his  swing.  It  does  me  good, 
as  I  walk  towards  the  street  of  my  daily  avoca- 
tion, on  some  fine  ]\Iay  morning,  to  meet  him 
marching  in  a  quite  opposite  direction,  with  a 
jolly  handsome  presence,  and  shining  sanguine 
face  that  indicates  some  purchase  in  his  eye — a 
Claude — or  a  Hobbima — for  much  of  his  enviable 
leisure  is  consumed  at  Christie's  and  Phillips' 
— or  where  not,  to  pick  up  pictures,  and  such 
gauds.  On  these  occasions  he  mostly  stoppeth 
me,  to  read  a  short  lecture  on  the  advantages  a 
person  like  me  possesses  above  himself  in  having 
his  time  occupied  with  business  which  he  must 
do, — assureth  me  that  he  often  feels  it  hangs 
heavy  on  his  hands — wishes  he  had  fewer  holi- 
days— and  goes  off — Westward  Ho  ! — chanting  a 
tune,  to  Pall  jMall, — perfectly  convinced  that  he 
has  convinced  me, — while  I  proceed  in  my  op- 
posite direction,  tuneless. 

It  is  pleasant  again  to  see  this  Professor  of  In- 
difference doing  the  honors  of  his  new  purchase, 
when  he  has  fairly  housed  it.  You  must  view  it 
in  every  light,  till  he  has  found  the  best — placing 


132  lB6sn^5  of  Blta. 

it  at  this  distance,  and  at  that,  but  always  suiting; 
the  focus  of  your  sight  to  his  own.  You  must 
spy  at  it  through  your  fingers,  to  catch  the  aerial 
perspective, — though  you  assure  him  that  to  you 
the  landscape  shows  much  more  agreeable  with- 
out that  artifice.  Woe  be  to  the  luckless  wight, 
who  does  not  only  not  respond  to  his  rapture,  but 
who  should  drop  an  unseasonable  intimation  of 
preferring  one  of  his  anterior  bargains  to  the 
present  ! — the  last  is  always  his  best  hit — his 
"Cynthia  of  the  minute."  Alas  !  how  many  a 
mild  Madonna  have  I  known  to  cof?ie  in — a 
Raphael  ! — keep  its  ascendancy  for  a  few  brief 
moons, — then,  after  certain  intermedial  degrada- 
tions, from  the  front  drawing-room  to  the  back 
gallery,  thence  to  the  dark  parlor, — adopted  in 
turn  by  each  of  the  Carracci,  under  successive 
lowering  ascriptions  of  filiation,  mildly  breaking 
its  fall, — consigned  to  the  oblivious  lumber-room, 
go  out  at  last  a  Lucca  Giordano,  or  plain  Carlo 
Maratti  1 — which  things  when  I  beheld — musing 
upon  the  chances  and  mutabilities  of  fate  below, 
hath  made  me  to  reflect  upon  the  altered  condi- 
tion of  great  personages,  or  that  woful  Queen  of 
Richard  the  Second — 

set  forth  in  pomp 

She  came  adorned  hither  like  sweet  May, 
Sent  back  like  Hallowmas  or  shortest  day. 

With  great  love  ioryou,  J.  E.  hath  but  a  limited 
sympathy  with  what  you  feel  or  do.  He  lives  in  a 
world  of  his  own,  and  makes  slender  guesses  at 
what  passes  in  your  mind.  He  never  pierces 
the  marrow  of  your  habits.  He  will  tell  an  old 
:established  play-goer,  that  Mr.  Such-a-one,  of  So- 


Hb^  IRelationg^  133 

and-so  (naming  one  of  the  theatres),  is  a  very- 
lively  comedian — as  a  piece  of  news  !  He  adver- 
tised me  but  the  other  day  of  some  pleasant  green 
lanes  which  he  had  found  out  for  me,  knowing- 
me  io  he  a  great  walker,  m  my  own  immediate 
vicinity — who  have  haunted  the  identical  spot 
any  time  these  twenty  years  !  He  has  not  much 
respect  for  that  class  of  feelings  which  goes  by 
the  name  of  sentimental.  He  applies  the  defini- 
tion of  real  evil  to  bodily  sufferings  exclusively — 
and  rejecteth  all  others  as  imaginary.  He  is 
affected  by  the  sight,  or  the  bare  supposition,  of 
a  creature  in  pain,  to  a  degree  which  I  have 
never  witnessed  out  of  womankind.  A  constitu- 
tional acuteness  to  this  class  of  suffering  may  in 
part  account  for  this.  The  animal  tribe  in  par- 
ticular he  taketh  under  his  especial  protection.  A 
broken-winded  or  spur-galled  horse  is  sure  to  find 
an  advocate  in  him.  An  over-loaded  ass  is  his 
client  forever.  He  is  the  apostle  to  the  brute 
kind — the  never-failing  friend  of  those  who  have 
none  to  care  for  them.  The  contemplation  of  a 
lobster  boiled,  or  eels  skinned  alive,  will  wring 
him  so,  **all  for  pity  he  could  die."  It  will  take 
the  savor  from  his  palate,  and  the  rest  from  his 
pillow  for  days  and  night.  With  the  intense  feel- 
ing of  Thomas  Clarkson,  he  wanted  only  the 
steadiness  of  pursuit,  and  unity  of  purpose,  of 
that  '-'true  yoke-fellow  with  Time,"  to  have  ef- 
fected as  much  for  the  Animal,  a.s  he  hath  done  for 
the  Negro  Creation.  But  my  uncontrollable  cousin 
is  but  imperfectly  formed  for  purposes  which  de- 
mand cooperation.  He  cannot  wait.  His  amel- 
ioration plans  must  be  ripened  in  a  day.  For  this 
reason   he   has   cut  but  an  equivocal   figure    in 


134  JBsea^s  ot  BUa. 

benevolent  societies,  and  combinations  for  the 
alleviation  of  human  sufferings.  His  zeal  con- 
stantly makes  him  to  outrun,  and  put  out,  his 
coadjutors.  He  thinks  of  reheving, — while  they 
think  of  debating-.  He  was  blackballed  out  of  a 
society  for  the  Relief  of  .  .  .  because  the 
fervor  of  his  humanity  toiled  beyond  the  formal 
apprehension,  and  creeping  processes  of  his  asso- 
ciates. I  shall  always  consider  this  distinction 
as  a  patent  of  nobility  in  the  Elia  family  ! 

Do  I  mention  these  seeming  inconsistencies  to 
smile  at,  or  upbraid  my  unique  cousin  I  IMarry, 
heaven,  and  all  good  manners,  and  the  under- 
standing that  should  be  between  kinsfolk,  forbid  ! 
With  all  the  strangeness  of  this  strangest  of  the 
Elias — I  would  not  have  him  in  one  jot  or  tittle 
other  than  he  is  ;  neither  would  I  barter  or  ex- 
change my  wild  kinsman  for  the  most  exact, 
regular,  and  every  way  consistent  kinsman 
breathing. 

In  my  next,  reader,  I  may  perhaps  give  you 
some  account  of  my  cousin  Bridget, — if  you  are 
not  already  surfeited  with  cousins — and  take  you 
by  the  hand,  if  you  are  willing  to  go  with  us,  on 
an  excursion  which  we  made  a  summer  or  two 
since,  in  search  of  inoi-e  cousins, 

Through  the  green  plains  of  pleasant  Hertfordshire. 


MACKERY  END.  IN  HERTFORDSHIRE. 


Bridget  Elia  has  been  my  housekeeper  for 
many  a  long  year.  I  have  obligations  to  Bridget, 
extending  beyond  the  period  of  memory.  We 
housed  together,  old  bachelor  and  maid,  in  a  sort 
of  double  singleness  ;  with  such  tolerable  comfort, 
upon  the  whole,  that  I,  for  one,  find  in  myself  no 
sort  of  disposition  to  go  out  upon  the  mountains, 
with  the  rash  king's  offspring,  to  bewail  my  cel- 
ibacy. We  agree  pretty  well  in  our  tastes  and 
habits — yet  so,  as  ''with  a  difference."  We  are 
generally  in  harmony,  with  occasional  bickerings 
" — as  it  should  be  among  near  relations.  Our 
sympathies  arc  rather  understood  than  expressed  ; 
and  once,  upon  my  dissembling  a  tone  in  my 
voice  more  kindly  than  ordinary,  my  cousin  burst 
into  tears,  and  complained  that  I  was  altered. 
We  are  both  great  readers  in  different  directions. 
While  I  am  hanging  over  (for  the  thousandth 
time)  some  passage  in  old  Burton,  or  one  of  his 
strange  contemporaries,  she  is  abstracted  in  some 
modern  tale,  or  adventure,  whereof  our  common 
reading-table  is  daily  fed  with  assiduously  fresh 
supplies.  Narrative  teases  me.  I  have  little 
concern  in  the  progress  of  events.  She  must 
have  a  story — well,  ill,  or  indifferently  told — so 
there  be  life   stirring  in   it,  and  plenty  of  good  or 

135 


136  Bs0as5  ot  Blia. 

evil  accidents.  The  fluctuations  of  fortune  in 
fiction — and  almost  in  real  life — have  ceased  to 
interest,  or  operate  but  dully  upon  me.  Out-of- 
the-way  humors  and  opinions — heads  with  some 
diverting  twist  in  them — the  oddities  of  author- 
ship please  me  most.  My  cousin  has  a  native 
disrelish  of  any  thing  that  sounds  odd  or  bizarre. 
Nothing  goes  down  with  her  that  is  quaint, 
irregular,  or  out  of  the  road  of  common  sympathy. 
She  "  holds  nature  is  more  clever."  I  can  pardon 
her  blindness  to  the  beautiful  obliquities  of  the 
"  Religio  IMedici,"'  but  she  must  apologize  to  me 
for  certain  disrespectful  insinuations,  which  she 
has  been  pleased  to  throw  out  latterly,  touching 
the  intellectuals  of  a  dear  favorite  of  mine,  of  the 
last  century  but  one, — the  thrice  noble,  chaste, 
and  virtuous,  but  again  somewhat  fantastical, 
and  original-brained,  generous  INIargarct  New- 
castle. 

It  has  been  the  lot  of  my  cousin,  often er  per- 
haps than  1  could  have  wished,  to  have  had  for 
her  associates  and  mine,  free-thinkers, — leaders 
and  disciples  of  novel  philosophies  and  systems  ; 
but  she  neither  wrangles  with,  nor  accepts  their 
opinions.  That  which  was  good  and  venerable 
to  her,  when  a  child,  retains  its  authority  over 
her  mind  still.  She  never  juggles  or  plays  tricks 
with  her  understanding. 

We  are  both  of  us  inclined  to  be  a  little  too 
positive  ;  and  I  have  observed  the  results  of  our 
disputes  to  be  almost  uniformly  this, — that  in 
matters  of  fact,  dates,  and  circumstances  it  turns 
out  that  I  was  in  the  right,  and  my  cousin  in  the 
wrong.  But  where  we  have  differed  upon  moral 
points  ;  upon  some  things  proper  to  be  done,  or 


^acfter^  BnD,  in  IbcrttorDsbire.  137 

let  alone  ;  whatever  heat  of  opposition,  or  steadi- 
ness of  conviction  I  set  out  with,  I  am  sure 
always,  in  the  long  run,  to  be  brought  over  to  her 
way  of  thinking. 

I  must  touch  upon  the  foibles  of  my  kinswoman 
with  a  gentle  hand,  for  Bridget  does  not  like  to 
be  told  of  her  faults.  She  hath  an  awkward  trick 
(to  say  no  worse  of  it)  of  reading  in  company  ; 
at  which  times  she  will  answer  jyes  or  7to  to  a 
question,  without  fully  understanding  its  purport, 
— which  is  provoking,  and  derogatory  in  the 
highest  degree  to  the  dignity  of  the  putter  of  the 
said  question.  Her  presence  of  mind  is  equal  to 
the  most  pressing  trials  of  life,  but  will  sometimes 
desert  her  upon  trifling  occasions.  When  the 
purpose  requires  it,  and  is  a  thing  of  moment, 
she  can  speak  to  it  greatly  ;  but  in  matters  which 
are  not  stuff  of  the  conscience,  she  hath  been 
known  sometimes  to  let  slip  a  word  less  season- 
ably. 

Her  education  in  youth  was  not  much  at- 
tended to,  and  she  happily  missed  all  that  train 
of  female  garniture  which  passeth  by  the  name 
of  accomplishments.  She  was  tumbled  early,  by 
accident  or  design,  into  a  spacious  closet  of  good 
old  English  reading,  without  much  selection  or 
prohibition,  and  browsed  at  will  upon  that  fair 
and  wholesome  pasturage.  Had  I  twenty  girls, 
they  should  be  brought  up  exactly  in  this  fashion. 
I  know  not  whether  their  chance  in  wedlock 
might  not  be  diminished  by  it,  but  I  can  answer 
for  it  that  it  makes  (if  the  worst  comes  to  the 
worst)  most  incomparable  old  maids. 

In  a  season  of  distress  she  is  the  truest  com- 
forter,  but    in    the  teasinsf   accidents  and   minor 


138  E05a^6  of  Blia. 

perplexities,  which  do  not  call  out  the  will  to  meet 
them,  she  sometim.es  maketh  matters  worse  by 
an  excess  of  participation.  If  she  does  not  always 
divide  your  trouble,  upon  the  pleasanter  occa- 
sions of  life  she  is  sure  always  to  treble  your  sat- 
isfaction. She  is  excellent  to  be  at  a  play  with  or 
upon  a  visit,  but  best  when  she  goes  a  journey 
with  you. 

We  made  an  excursion  together  a  few  sum- 
mers since  into  Hertfordshire,  to  beat  up  the 
quarters  of  some  of  our  less  known  relations  in 
that  fine  corn  country. 

The  oldest  thing  I  remember  is  Alackery  End, 
or  Mackarel  End,  as  it  is  spelt,  perhaps  more 
properly,  in  some  old  maps  of  Hertfordshire  ;  a 
farm-house, — delightfully  situated  within  a  gentle 
walk  from  Wheathampstead.  I  can  just  remember 
having  been  there  on  a  visit  to  a  great-aunt,  when 
I  was  child,  under  the  care  of  Bridget,  who,  as  I 
have  said,  is  older  than  myself  by  some  ten  years. 
I  wish  that  I  could  throw  into  a  heap  the  remain- 
der of  our  joint  existences,  that  we  might  share 
them  in  equal  division.  But  that  is  impossible. 
The  house  was  at  that  time  in  the  occupation  of 
a  substantial  yeoman,  who  had  married  my  grand- 
mothers sister.  His  name  was  Gladman.  My 
grandmother  was  a  Bruton,  married  to  a  Field. 
The  Gladmans  and  the  Brutons  are  still  flourish- 
ing in  that  part  of  the  country,  but  the  Fields  are 
almost  extinct.  IMore  than  forty  years  have 
elapsed  since  the  visit  I  speak  of  ;  and  for  the 
greater  portion  of  that  period  we  have  lost  sight 
of  the  other  two  branches  also.  Who  or  what 
sort  of  persons  inherited  Mackery  End — kindred 
or     stranee    folk — we    were     afraid    almost    to 


^acfteri^  EnD,  (n  IberttorDsblre.  139 

conjecture,  but  determined  some  day  to  ex- 
plore. 

By  somewhat  a  circuitous  route,  taking  the 
noble  park  at  Luton  in  our  way  from  Saint  AllDans, 
we  arrived  at  the  spot  of  our  anxious  curiosity 
about  noon.  The  sight  of  the  old  farm-house, 
though  every  trace  of  it  was  effaced  from  my 
recollection,  affected  me  with  a  pleasure  which  I 
had  not  experienced  for  many  a  year.  For  though 
/had  forgotten  it,  we  had  never  forgotten  being 
there  together,  and  we  had  been  talking  about 
Mackery  End  all  our  lives,  till  memory  on  my  part 
became  mocked  with  a  phantom  of  itself,  and  I 
thought  I  knew  the  aspect  of  a  place,  which,  when 
present,  O  how  unlike  it  was  to  thai  which  I  had 
conjured  up  so  many  times  instead  of  it  ! 

Still  the  air  breathed  balmily  about  it  ;  the  sea- 
son was  in  the  "heart  of  June"  and  I  could  say 
with  the  poet  : 

But  thou  that  didst  appear  so  fair 

To  fond  imagination  ; 
Dost  rival  in  the  light  of  day 

Her  delicate  creation  ! 

Bridget's  was  more  a  waking  bliss  than  mine, 
for  she  easily  remembered  her  old  acquaintance 
again, — some  altered  features,  of  course,  a  little 
grudged  at  At  first,  indeed,  she  was  ready  to 
disbelieve  for  joy  ;  but  the  scene  soon  reconfirmed 
itself  in  her  affections, — and  she  traversed 
every  outpost  of  the  old  mansion,  to  the  wood- 
house,  the  orchard,  the  place  where  the  pigeon- 
house  had  stood  (house  and  birds  were  alike  flown) 
— with  a  breathless  impatience  of  recognition, 
which  was  more    pardonable  perhaps  than  decor- 


I40  B63a^3  of  Blta. 

ous  at  the  age  of  fifty  odd.     But  Bridget  in  some 
things  is  behind  her  years. 

The  only  thing  left  was  to  get  into  the  house, 
— and  that  was  a  difficulty  which  to  me  singly 
would  have  been  insurmountable  ;  for  I  am  ter- 
ribly shy  in  making  myself  known  to  strangers 
and  out-of-date  kinsfolk.  Love,  stronger  than 
scruple,  winged  my  cousin  in  without  me  ;  but 
she  soon  returned  with  a  creature  that  might  have 
sat  to  a  sculptor  for  the  image  of  Welcome.  It 
was  the  youngest  of  the  Gladmans  ;  who,  by  mar- 
riage with  a  Bruton,  had  become  mistress  of  the 
old  mansion.  A  comely  brood  are  the  Brutons. 
Six  of  them,  females,  were  noted  as  the  hand- 
somest young  women  in  the  country.  But  this 
adopted  Bruton,  in  my  mind,  was  better  than  they 
all — more  comely.  She  was  born  too  late  to  have 
remembered  me.  She  just  recollected  in  early 
life  to  have  had  her  cousin  Bridget  once  pointed 
out  to  her,  climbing  a  stile.  But  the  name  of 
kindred,  and  of  cousinship,  was  enough.  Those 
slender  ties,  that  prove  slight  as  gossamer  in  the 
rendipg  atmosphere  of  a  metropolis,  bind  faster, 
as  we  found  it,  in  hearty,  homely,  loving  Hert- 
fordshire. In  five  minutes  we  were  as  thoroughly 
acquainted  as  if  we  had  been  born  and  bred  up 
together  ;  were  familiar,  even  to  the  calling  each 
other  by  our  Christian  names.  So  Christians 
should  call  one  another.  To  have  seen  Bridget, 
and  her — it  v/as  like  the  meeting  of  the  two  script- 
ural cousins  !  There  was  a  grace  and  dignity,  an 
aptitude  of  form  and  stature,  answering  to  her 
mind,  in  this  farmer's  wife,  which  would  have 
shined  in  a  palace — or  so  we  thought  it.  We  were 
made  welcome  by  husband  and  wife  equally — we, 


/IRacfters  BnD,  in  IberttorDsbire.  141 

and  our  friend  that  was  with  us.  I  had  ahnost 
forgotten  him, — but  B.  F.  will  not  so  soon  forget 
that  meeting,  if  peradventure  he  shall  read  this 
on  the  far  distant  shores  where  the  kangaroo 
haunts.  The  fatted  calf  was  made  ready,  or 
rather  was  already  so,  as  if  in  anticipation  of  our 
coming  ;  and,  after  an  appropriate  glass  of  native 
wine,  never  let  me  forget  with  what  honest  pride 
this  hospitable  cousin  made  us  proceed  to  Wheat- 
hampstead,  to  introduce  us  (as  some  new-found 
rarity)  to  her  mother  and  sister  Gladmans,  who 
did  indeed  know  something  more  of  us,  at  a  time 
when  she  almost  knew  nothing.  With  that  cor- 
responding kindness  we  were  received  by  them 
also, — how  Bridget's  memory,  exalted  by  the  oc- 
casion, warmed  into  a  thousand  half-obliterated 
recollections  of  things  and  persons,  to  my  utter 
astonishment,  and  her  own — and  to  the  astound- 
ment  of  B.  F.  who  sat  by,  almost  the  only  thing 
that  was  not  a  cousin  there, — old  effaced  images 
of  more  than  half-forgotten  names  and  circum- 
stances still  crowding  back  upon  her  as  words 
written  in  lemon  come  out  upon  exposure  to  a 
friendly  warmth, — when  I  forget  all  this,  then  may 
my  country  cousins  forget  me  ;  and  Bridget  no 
more  remember,  that  in  the  days  of  weakling 
infancy  I  was  her  tender  charge, — as  I  have  been 
her  care  in  foolish  manhood  since, — in  those 
pretty  pastoral  walks,  long  ago,  about  Mackery 
End,  in  Hertfordshire. 


MY  FIRST  PLAY. 


At  the  north  end  of  Cross  Court  there  yet  stands 
a  portal,  of  some  architectural  pretensions,  though 
reduced  to  humble  use,  serving  at  present  for  an 
entrance  to  a  printing-office.  This  old  door-way, 
if  you  are  young,  reader,  you  may  not  know,  was 
the  identical  pit  entrance  to  old  Drury — Garrick 's 
Drury, — all  of  it  that  is  left.  I  never  pass  it  with- 
out shaking  some  forty  years  from  off  my  shoul- 
ders, recurring  to  the  evening  when  I  passed 
through  it  to  see  my  first  play.  The  afternoon  had 
been  wet,  and  the  condition  of  our  going  (the  elder 
folks  and  myself)  was,  that  the  rain  should  cease. 
With  what  a  beating  heart  did  I  watch  from  the 
window  the  puddles,  from  the  stillness  of  which 
I  was  taught  to  prognosticate  the  desired  cessa- 
tion !  I  seem  to  remember  the  last  spurt,  and  the 
glee  with  which  I  ran  to  announce  it. 

We  went  with  orders,  which  my  godfather,  F., 
had  sent  us.  He  kept  the  oil-shop  (now  Davies") 
at  the  corner  of  Featherstone  Buildings,  in  Hol- 
born.  F.  was  a  tall,  grave  person,  lofty  in  speech, 
and  had  pretensions  above  his  rank.  He  asso- 
ciated in  those  days  with  John  Palmer,  the  com- 
edian, whose  gait  and  bearing  he  seemed  to  copy  ; 
if  John  (which  is  quite  as  likely)  did  not  rather 
borrow  somewhat  of  his  manner  from  my  god- 
142 


^S  J'irst  iplai^.  143 

father.  He  was  also  known  to,  and  visited  by- 
Sheridan.  It  was  to  his  house  in  Holborn  that 
young  Brinsley  brought  his  first  wife  on  her  elope- 
ment with  him  from  a  boarding-school  at  Bath, — 
the  beautiful  Maria  Linley.  My  parents  were 
present  (over  a  quadrille  table)  when  he  arrived 
in  the  evening  with  his  harmonious  charge.  From 
either  of  these  connections  it  maybe  inferred  that 
my  godfather  could  command  an  order  for  the  then 
Drury  Lane  Theatre  at  pleasure, — and,  indeed, 
a  pretty  liberal  issue  of  those  cheap  billets,  in 
Brinsley's  easy  autograph,  I  have  heard  him  say 
was  the  sole  remuneration  which  he  had  received 
for  many  years'  nightly  illumination  of  the  orches- 
tra and  various  avenues  of  that  theatre, — and  he 
was  content  it  should  be  so.  The  honor  of  Sheri- 
dan's familiarity — or  supposed  familiarity — was 
better  to  my  godfather  than  money. 

F.  was  the  most  gentlemanly  of  oilmen  ;  gran- 
diloquent, yet  courteous.  His  delivery  of  the  com- 
monest matters  of  fact  was  Ciceronian.  He  had 
two  Latin  words  almost  constantly  in  his  mouth, 
(how  odd  sounds  Latin  from  an  oilman's  lips  !) 
w^hich  my  better  knowledge  since  has  enabled  me 
to  correct.  In  strict  pronunciation  they  should 
have  been  sounded  z^/c(?  versa, — but  in  those  young 
years  they  impressed  me  with  more  awe  than  they 
would  now  do,  read  aright  from  Seneca  or  Varro, 
in  his  own  peculiar  pronunciation,  monosyllabi- 
cally  elaborated,  or  Anglicized,  into  something  like 
verse  verse.  By  an  imposing  manner,  and  the  help 
of  these  distorted  syllables,  he  climbed  (but  that 
was  little)  to  the  highest  parochial  honors  which 
St.  Andrews  has  to  bestow. 

He  is  dead, — and  thus  much  I  thought  due  to 


144  B00ai26  of  BUa. 

his  memory,  both  for  my  first  orders  (Httle  won- 
drous talismans  I — slight  keys,  and  insignificant  to 
outward  sight,  but  opening  to  me  more  than  x\ra- 
bian  paradises  !),  and  moreover  that  by  his  testa- 
mentary beneficence  I  came  into  possession  of  the 
only  landed  property  which  I  could  ever  call  my 
ov/n, — situate  near  the  roadway  village  of  pleas- 
ant Puckeridge,  in  Hertfordshire.  When  I  jour- 
neyed down  to  take  possession,  and  planted  foot 
on  my  own  ground,  the  stately  habits  of  the  donor 
descended  upon  me,  and  I  strode  (shall  I  confess 
the  vanity  ?)  with  larger  paces  over  my  allotment 
of  three  quarters  of  an  acre,  with  its  commodious 
mansion  in  the  midst,  with  the  feeling  of  an  Eng- 
lish freeholder  that  all  betwixt  sky  and  centre 
was  my  own.  The  estate  had  passed  into  more 
prudent  hands,  and  nothing  but  an  agrarian  can 
restore  it. 

In  those  days  were  pit  orders.  Beshrew  the 
uncomfortable  manager  who  abolished  them  ! — 
with  one  of  these  we  went.  I  remember  the 
waiting  at  the  door — not  that  which  is  left — but 
between  that  and  an  inner  door  in  shelter, — O 
when  shall  I  be  such  an  expectant  again  ! — with 
the  cry  of  nonpareils,  an  indispensable  play-house 
accompaniment  in  those  days.  As  near  as  I  can 
recollect,  the  fashionable  pronunciation  of  the 
theatrical  fruiteresses  then  was,  ''Chase  some 
oranges,  chase  some  numparels,  chase  a  bill  of  the 
play  ■'  ; — chase  pro  chuse.  But  when  we  got  in, 
I  beheld  the  green  curtain  that  veiled  a  heaven 
to  my  imagination,  which  was  soon  to  be  dis- 
closed— the  breathless  anticipation  I  endured  ! 
I  had  seen  something  like  it  in  the  plate  prefixed 
to  Troilus  and  Cressida,  in  Rowe's  Shakspeare,— 


m^  mvBt  ipiai?.  145 

the  tent  scene  with  Diomede, — and  a  sight  of  that 
plate  can  always  bring  back  in  a  measure,  the 
feeling  of  that  evening.  The  boxes  at  that  time, 
full  of  well-dressed  women  of  quality,  projected 
over  the  pit ;  and  the  pilasters  reaching  down 
were  adorned  with  a  glistering  substance  (I  know 
not  what)  under  glass  (as  it  seemed),  resembling 
— a  homely  fancy — but  I  judged  it  to  be  sugar 
candy, — yet,  to  my  raised  imagination,  divested 
of  its  homelier  qualities,  it  appeared  a  glorified 
candy  !  The  orchestra  lights  at  length  arose, 
those  "fair  Auroras!"  Once  the  bell  sounded. 
It  was  to  ring  out  yet  once  again, — and,  inca- 
pable of  the  anticipation,  I  reposed  my  shut  eyes 
in  a  sort  of  resignation  upon  the  maternal  lap. 
It  rang  the  second  time.  The  curtain  drew  up, 
— I  was  not  past  six  years  old,  and  the  play  was 
Artaxerxes  ! 

I  had  dabbled  a  little  in  the  Universal  History, 
— the  ancient  part  of  it, — and  here  was  the  court 
of  Persia.  It  was  being  admitted  to  a  sight  of  the 
past.  I  took  no  proper  interest  in  the  action 
going  on,  for  I  understood  not  its  import, — but  I 
heard  the  word  Darius,  and  I  was  in  the  midst 
of  Daniel.  All  feeling  was  absorbed  in  vision. 
Gorgeous  vests,  gardens,  palaces,  princesses, 
passed  before  me.  I  knew  not  players.  I  was 
in  Persepolis  for  the  time,  and  the  burning  idol 
of  their  devotion  almost  converted  me  into  a 
worshipper.  I  was  awestruck,  and  believed  those 
significations  to  be  something  more  than  ele- 
mental fires.  It  was  all  enchantment  and  a 
dream.  No  such  pleasure  has  since  visited  me 
but  in  dreams.  Harlequin's  invasion  followed  ; 
where,  I  remember,  the  transformation  of  the 
10 


146  B55as5  of  :!£lia, 

magistrates  into  reverend  beldams  seemed  to  me 
a  piece  of  grave  historic  justice,  and  the  tailor 
carrying  his  own  head  to  be  as  sober  a  verity  as 
the  legend  of  St.  Denys. 

The  next  play  to  which  I  was  taken  was  the 
Lady  of  the  Manor,  of  which,  with  the  exception 
of  some  scenery,  very  faint  traces  are  left  in 
my  memory.  It  was  followed  by  a  pantomime, 
called  Lun's  Ghost — a  satiric  touch,  I  apprehend, 
upon  Rich,  not  long  since  dead — but  to  my  ap- 
prehension (too  severe  for  satire),  Lun  was  as  re- 
mote a  piece  of  antiquity  as  Lud — the  father  of 
a  line  of  Harlequins — transmitting  his  dagger  of 
lath  (the  wooden  sceptre)  through  countless  ages. 
I  saw  the  primeval  Motley  come  from  his  silent 
tomb  in  a  ghastly  vest  of  white  patchwork,  like 
the  apparition  of  a  dead  rainbow.  So  Harlequins 
(thought  I)  look  when  they  are  dead. 

My  third  play  followed  in  quick  succession. 
It  was  the  Way  of  the  World.  I  think  I  must 
have  sat  at  it  as  grave  as  a  judge  ;  for,  I  remem- 
ber, the  hysteric  affectations  of  good  Lady  Wish- 
fort  affected  me  like  some  solemn  tragic  passion. 
Robinson  Crusoe  followed ;  in  which  Crusoe, 
man  Friday,  and  the  parrot,  were  as  good  and 
authentic  as  in  the  story.  The  clownery  and 
pantaloonery  of  these  pantomimes  have  clean 
passed  out  of  my  head.  I  believe,  I  no  more 
laughed  at  them,  than  at  the  same  age  I  should 
have  been  disposed  to  laugh  at  the  grotesque 
Gothic  heads  (seeming  to  me  then  replete  with 
devout  meaning)  that  gape,  and  grin,  in  stone 
around  the  inside  of  the  old  Round  Church  (my 
church)  of  the  Templars. 

I  saw  these  plays  in  the  season  1781-2,  w^hen  I 


/Bbg  3fir6t  Ipla^.  147 

was  from  six  to  seven  years  old.  After  the  inter- 
vention of  six  or  seven  other  years  (for  at  school 
all  play-going  was  inhibited)  1  again  entered  the 
doors  of  a  theatre.  That  old  Artaxerxes  evening 
had  never  done  ringing  in  my  fancy.  I  expected 
the  same  feelings  to  come  again  with  the  same 
occasion.  But  we  differ  from  ourselves  less  at 
sixty  and  sixteen,  than  the  latter  does  from  six. 
In  that  interval  what  had  I  not  lost  !  At  the  first 
pericdl  knew  nothing,  discriminated  nothing.  I 
felt  all,  loved  all,  wondered  all, — 

Was  nourished,  I  could  not  tell  how, — 

I  had  left  the  temple  a  devotee,  and  was  returned 
a  rationalist.  The  same  things  were  there  mate- 
rially ;  but  the  emblem,  the  reference,  was  gone  ! 
The  green  curtain  was  no  longer  a  veil,  drawn 
between  two  v/orlds,  the  unfolding  of  which  was 
to  bring  back  past  ages  to  present  a  "royal 
ghost," — but  a  certain  quantity  of  green  baize, 
which  was  to  separate  the  audience  for  a  given 
time  from  certain  of  their  fellow-men  who  were 
to  come  forward  and  pretend  those  parts.  The 
lights — the  orchestra  lights — came  up  a  clumsy 
machinery.  The  first  ring,  and  the  second  ring, 
was  now  but  a  trick  of  the  prompter  s  bell — which 
had  been,  like  the  note  of  the  cuckoo,  a  phantom 
of  a  voice,  no  hand  seen  or  guessed  at  which 
ministered  to  its  warning.  The  actors  were  men 
and  women  painted.  I  thought  the  fault  was 
in  them  ;  but  it  was  in  myself,  and  the  alteration 
which  those  many  centuries — of  six  short  twelve- 
months— had  wrought  in  me.  Perhaps  it  was 
fortunate  for  me  that  the  play  of  the  evening  was 


148  3£6sas0  ot  BUa» 

but  an  indifferent  comedy,  as  it  g-ave  me  time 
to  crop  some  unreasonable  expectations,  which 
might  have  interfered  with  the  genuine  emotions 
with  which  I  was  soon  after  enabled  to  enter 
upon  the  first  appearance  to  me  of  Mrs.  Siddons  in 
Isabella.  Comparison  and  retrospection  soon 
yielded  to  the  present  attraction  of  the  scene  ; 
and  the  theatre  became  to  me,  upon  a  new  stock, 
the  most  delightful  of  recreations. 


MODERN  GALLANTRY. 


In  comparing  modern  with  ancient  manners, 
we  are  pleased  to  compliment  ourselves  upon  the 
point  of  gallantry  ;  a  certain  obsequiousness,  or 
deferential  respect  which  we  are  supposed  to  pay- 
to  females,  as  females. 

I  shall  believe  that  this  principle  actuates  our 
conduct,  when  I  can  forget,  that  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  of  the  era  from  which  we  date  our  civil- 
ity, we  are  but  just  beginning  to  leave  off  the  very 
frequent  practice  of  whipping  females  in  public, 
in  common  with  the  coarsest  male  offenders. 

I  shall  believe  it  to  be  influential,  when  I  can 
shut  my  eyes  to  the  fact,  that  in  England  women 
are  still  occasionally — hanged. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  actresses  are  no 
longer  subject  to  be  hissed  off  a  stage  by  gentle- 
men. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  Dorimant  hands  a 
fish-wife  across  the  kennel ;  or  assists  the  apple- 
woman  to  pick  up  her  wandering  fruit,  which 
some  unlucky  dray  has  just  dissipated. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  the  Dorimants  in 
humbler  life,  who  would  be  thought  in  their  way 
notable  adepts  in  this  refinement,  shall  act  upon 
it  in  places  where  they  are  not  known,  or  think 
themselves  not  observed, — when  I  shall  see  the 

149 


15b  JBssn^s  ot  jeiia. 

traveller  for  some  rich  tradesman  part  with  his 
admired  box-coat,  to  spread  it  over  the  defence- 
less shoulders  of  the  poor  woman  who  is  passing 
to  her  parish  on  the  roof  of  the  same  stage-coach 
with  him,  drenched  in  the  rain, — when  I  shall  no 
longer  see  a  woman  standing  up  in  the  pit  of  a 
London  theatre,  till  she  is  sick  and  faint  with  the 
exertion,  with  men  about  her,  seated  at  their  ease, 
and  jeering  at  her  distress  ;  till  one,  that  seems  to 
have  more  manners  or  conscience  than  the  rest, 
significantly  declares  "she  should  be  w^elcome  to 
his  seat,  if  she  were  a  little  younger  and  hand- 
somer." Place  this  dapper  warehouseman,  or 
that  rider,  in  a  circle  of  their  own  female  acquaint- 
ance, and  you  shall  confess  you  have  not  seen  a 
politer-bred  man  in  Lothbury. 

Lastly,  I  shall  begin  to  believe  that  there  is 
some  such  principle  influencing  our  conduct, 
when  more  than  one  half  of  the  drudgery  and 
coarse  servitude  of  the  world  shall  cease  to  be 
performed  by  women. 

Until  that  day  comes,  I  shall  never  believe  this 
boasted  point  to  be  any  thing  more  than  a  con- 
ventional fiction  ;  a  pageant  got  up  between  the 
sexes,  in  a  certain  rank,  and  at  a  certain  time  of 
life,  in  which  both  find  their  account  equally. 

I  shall  be  even  disposed  to  rank  it  among  the 
salutary  fictions  of  life,  when  in  polite  circles  I 
shall  see  the  same  attentions  paid  to  age  as  to 
youth,  to  homely  features  as  to  handsome,  to 
coarse  complexions  as  to  clear, — to  the  woman, 
as  she  is  a  woman,  not  as  she  is  a  beauty,  a 
fortune,  or  a  title. 

I  shall  believe  it  to  be  something  more  than  a 
name,  when  a  well-dressed  gentleman  in  a  vrell- 


/IRodern  (Ballantr^.  151 

dressed  company  can  advert  to  the  topic  oi female 
old  age  without  exciting,  and  intending  to  excite, 
a  sneer  ; — when  the  phrases  "antiquated  virgin- 
ity," and  such  a  one  has  "overstood  her  market," 
pronounced  in  good  company,  shall  raise  imme- 
diate offence  in  man,  or  woman,  that  shall  hear 
them  spoken. 

Joseph  Paice,  of  Bread-street  Hill,  merchant, 
and  one  of  the  directors  of  the  South-Sea  Com- 
pany— the  same  to  whom  Edwards,  the  Shaks- 
peare  commentator,  has  addressed  a  fine  sonnet 
— was  the  only  pattern  of  consistent  gallantry  I 
have  met  with.  He  took  me  under  his  shelter 
at  an  early  age,  and  bestowed  some  pains  upon 
me.  I  owe  to  his  precepts  and  example  whatever 
there  is  of  the  man  of  business  (and  that  is  not 
much)  in  my  composition.  It  was  not  his  fault 
that  I  did  not  profit  more.  Though  bred  a 
Presbyterian,  and  brought  up  a  merchant,  he 
was  the  finest  gentleman  of  his  time.  He  had  not 
one  system  of  attention  to  females  in  the  drawing- 
room,  and  aftolher  in  the  shop,  or  at  the  stall.  I 
do  not  mean  that  he  made  no  distinction.  But  he 
never  lost  sight  of  sex,  or  overlooked  it  in  the 
casualties  of  a  disadvantageous  situation.  I  have 
seen  him  stand  bareheaded — smile  if  you  please 
— to  a  poor  servant-girl,  while  she  has  been  in- 
quiring of  him  the  way  to  some  street — in  such 
a  posture  of  unforced  civility,  as  neither  to  em- 
barrass her  in  the  acceptance,  nor  himself  in  the 
offer,  of  it.  He  was  no  dangler,  in  the  common 
acceptation  of  the  word,  after  women  ;  but  he  rev- 
erenced and  upheld,  in  every  form  in  which  it 
came  before  him,  zvomanhood.  I  have  seen  him 
— nay,    smile  not — tenderly  escorting  a  market- 


152  JEssa^s  of  Blla. 

woman,  whom  he  had  encountered  in  a  shower, 
exalting  his  umbrella  over  her  poor  basket  of  fruit, 
that  it  might  receive  no  damage,  with  as  much 
carefulness  as  if  she  had  been  a  countess.  To 
the  reverend  form  of  Female  Eld  he  would  yield 
the  wall  (though  it  were  to  an  ancient  beggar- 
woman)  with  more  ceremony  than  we  can  afford 
to  show  our  grandams.  He  was  the  Preux 
Chevalier  of  Age  ;  the  Sir  Caydore  or  Sir  Tristan 
to  those  who  have  no  Calidores  or  Tristans  to 
defend  them.  The  roses,  that  had  long  faded 
thence,  still  bloomed  for  him  in  those  withered 
and  yellow  cheeks. 

He  was  never  married,  but  in  his  youth  he  paid 
his  addresses  to  the  beautiful  Susan  Winstanley — 
old  Winstanley's  daughter  of  Clapton,  who  dying 
in  the  early  days  of  their  courtship,  confirmed  in 
him  the  resolution  of  perpetual  bachelorship.  It 
was  during  their  short  courtship,  he  told  me,  that 
he  had  been  one  day  treating  his  mistress  to  a 
profusion  of  civil  speeches — the  common  gallant- 
ries— to  which  kind  of  thing  she  had  hitherto 
manifested  no  repugnance — but  in  this  instance 
with  no  effect.  He  could  not  obtain  from  her  a 
decent  acknowledgment  in  return.  She  rather 
seemed  to  resent  his  compliments.  He  could 
not  set  it  down  to  caprice,  for  the  lady  had  always 
shown  herself  above  that  littleness.  Vvhen  he 
ventured,  on  the  following  day,  finding  her  a 
little  better  humored,  to  expostulate  with  her  on 
her  coldness  of  yesterda)^,  she  confessed,  with 
her  usual  frankness,  that  she  had  no  sort  of  dislike 
to  his  attentions  ;  that  she  could  even  endure  some 
high-flown  compliments  ;  that  a  young  woman 
placed  in  her  situation  had  a  right  to  expect   all 


ilRoDern  (BaUantri^.  153 

sorts  of  civil  things  said  to  her ;  that  she  hoped 
she  could  digest  a  dose  of  adulation,  short  of 
insincerity,  with  as  little  injury  to  her  humility 
as  most  young  women  ;  but  that  — a  little  before  he 
had  commenced  his  compliments — she  had  over- 
heard him  by  accident,  in  rather  rough  language, 
rating  a  young  woman,  who  had  not  brought 
home  his  cravats  quite  to  the  appointed  time, 
and  she  thought  to  herself,  **  As  I  am  Miss  Susan 
Winstanley,  and  a  young  lady, — a  reputed  beauty 
and  known  to  be  a  fortune — I  can  have  my  choice 
of  the  finest  speeches  from  the  mouth  of  this  very 
fine  gentleman  who  is  courting  me, — but  if  I  had 
been  poor  Mary  Such-a-one  {iiaming  the  inilliner') 
— and  had  failed  of  bringing  home  the  cravats  to 
the  appointed  hour — though  perhaps  I  had  sat  up 
half  the  night  to  forward  them — what  sort  of  com- 
pliments should  I  have  received  then  ?  And  my 
woman's  pride  came  to  my  assistance  ;  and  I 
thought,  that  if  it  were  only  to  do  vie  honor,  a 
female,  like  myself,  might  have  received  hand- 
somer usage ;  and  I  was  determined  not  to 
accept  any  fine  speeches,  to  the  compromise  of 
that  sex,  the  belonging  to  which  was  after  all  my 
strongest  claim  and  title  to  them." 

I  think  the  lady  discovered  both  generosity,  and 
a  just  way  of  thinking,  in  this  rebuke  Vv'hich  she 
gave  her  lover ;  and  I  have  sometimes  imagined, 
that  the  uncommon  strain  of  courtesy,  which 
through  life  regulated  the  actions  and  behavior  of 
my  friend  toward  all  womankind  indiscriminately, 
owed  its  happy  origin  to  this  seasonable  lesson 
from  the  lips  of  his  lamented  mistress. 

I  wish  the  whole  female  world  would  entertain 
the  same  notion   of  these  things  that  J.Iiss  Win- 


154  Bssa^s  ot  Blta. 

Stanley  showed.  Then  we  should  see  something 
of  the  spirit  of  consistent  gallantry  ;  and  no  longer 
witness  the  anomaly  of  the  same  man — a  pattern 
of  true  politeness  to  a  wife — of  cold  contempt,  or 
rudeness,  to  a  sister — the  idolater  of  his  female 
mistress — the  disparager  and  despiser  of  his  no 
less  female  aunt,  or  unfortunate — still  female — 
maiden  cousin.  Just  so  much  respect  as  a  woman 
derogates  from  her  own  sex,  in  whatever  condi- 
tion placed — her  handmaid  or  dependent — she 
deserves  to  have  diminished  from  herself  on  that 
score ;  and  probably  will  feel  the  diminution, 
when  youth,  and  beauty,  and  advantages,  not  in- 
separable from  sex,  shall  lose  of  their  attraction. 
What  a  woman  should  demand  of  a  man  in  court- 
ship, or  after  it,  is  first — respect  for  her  as  she  is 
a  woman  ;  and  next  to  that  to  be  respected  by 
him  above  all  other  women.  But  let  her  stand 
upon  her  female  character  as  upon  a  foundation  ; 
and  let  the  attentions,  incident  to  individual  pref- 
erence, be  so  many  pretty  additaments  and  orna- 
ments— as  many,  and  as  fanciful  as  you  please — 
to  that  main  structure.  Let  her  first  lesson  be 
with  sweet  Susan  Winstanley — to  reverence  her 
sex. 


THE     OLD     BENCHERS    OF    THE    INNER 
TEMPLE. 


I  WAS  born,  and  passed  the  first  seven  years  of 
my  life,  in  the  Temple.  Its  church,  its  halls,  its 
gardens,  its  fountain,  its  river,  I  had  almost  said 
— for  in  those  young  years,  what  was  this  king  of 
rivers  to  me  but  a  stream  that  watered  our  pleas- 
ant places  ?  These  are  of  my  oldest  recollections. 
I  repeat,  to  this  day,  no  verses  to  myself  more 
frequently,  or  with  kindlier  emotion,  than  those 
of  Spenser,  where  he  speaks  of  this  spot. 

There  when  they  came,  whereas  those  bricky  towers, 
The  which  on  Themmes  brode  aged  back  doth  ride, 
"Where  now  the  studious  lawyers  have  their  bowers, 
There  whylome  wont  the  Templar  knights  to  bide, 
Till    they  decayed  through  pride. 

Indeed,  it  is  the  most  elegant  spot  in  the  metrop- 
olis. What  a  transition  for  a  countryman  visiting 
London  for  the  first  time — the  passing  from  the 
crowded  Strand  or  Fleet  Street,  by  unexpected 
avenues,  into  its  magnificent  ample  squares,  its 
classic  green  recesses  !  What  a  cheerful,  liberal 
look  hath  that  portion  of  it,  which,  from  three 
sides,  overlooks  the  greater  garden  ;  that  goodly 
pile 

Of  building  strong,  albeit  of  Paper  hight, 


156  JBesa^s  of  JSlia. 

confronting  with  massive  contrast,  the  lighter, 
older,  more  fantastically  shrouded  one,  named 
of  Harcourt,  with  the  cheerful  Crown-office  Row 
(place  of  my  kindly  engendure),  right  opposite 
the  stately  stream,  which  washes  the  garden-foot 
with  her  yet  scarcely  trade-polluted  waters,  and 
seems  but  just  weaned  from  her  Twickenham 
Naiades  !  a  man  would  give  something  to  have 
been  born  in  such  places.  What  a  collegiate 
aspect  has  that  fine  Elizabethan  hall,  where  the 
fountain  plays,  which  I  have  made  to  rise  and 
fall,  how  many  times,  to  the  astoundment  of  the 
young  urchins,  my  contemporaries,  who,  not  be- 
ing able  to  guess  at  its  recondite  machinery,  were 
almost  tempted  to  hail  the  wondrous  work  as 
magic!  What  an  antique  air  had  the  now  almost 
effaced  sundials,  with  their  moral  inscriptions, 
seeming  coevals  with  that  Time  which  they 
measured,  and  to  take  their  revelations  of  its  flight 
immediately  from  heaven,  holding  correspond- 
ence with  the  fountain  of  light  !  How  would  the 
dark  line  steal  imperceptibly  on,  watched  by  the 
eye  of  childhood,  eager  to  detect  its  movement, 
never  catched,  nice  as  an  evanescent  cloud,  or 
the  first  arrests  of  sleep  ! 

Ah  !  yet  doth  beauty  like  a  dial  hand 

Steal  from  his  figure,  and  no  pace  perceived  ! 

What  a  dead  thing  is  a  clock,  with  its  ponderous 
embowelments  of  lead  and  brass,  its  pert  or  solemn 
dulness  of  communication,  compared  with  the 
simple  altar-like  structure,  and  silent  heart-lan- 
guage of  the  old  dial  !  It  stood  as  the  garden  god 
of  Christian   gardens.     Why  is  it   almost  every- 


XLbc  ©10  3Bencber6  ot  tbc  ITnner  ^empre.    157 

where  vanished  ?  If  its  business-use  be  superseded 
by  more  elaborate  inventions,  its  moral  uses,  its 
beauty,  might  have  pleaded  for  its  continuance. 
It  spoke  of  moderate  labors,  of  pleasure  not  pro- 
tracted after  sunset,  of  temperance,  and  good 
hours.  It  was  the  primitive  clock,  the  horologe 
of  the  first  world.  Adam  could  scarce  have  missed 
it  in  Paradise.  It  was  the  measure  appropriate  for 
sweet  plants  and  flowers  to  spring  by,  for  the 
birds  to  apportion  their  silvery  warblings  by,  for 
flocks  to  pasture  and  be  led  to  fold  by.  The 
shepherd  "carved  it  out  quaintly  in  the  sun";  and, 
turning  philosopher  by  the  very  occupation,  pro- 
vided it  with  mottoes  more  touching  than  tomb- 
stones. It  was  a  pretty  device  of  the  gardener, 
recorded  by  Marvell,  who,  in  the  days  of  artificial 
gardening,  made  a  dial  out  of  herbs  and  flowers. 
I  must  quote  his  verses  a  little  higher  up,  for  they 
are  full,  as  all  his  serious  poetry  was,  of  a  witty 
delicacy.  They  will  not  come  in  awkwardly,  I 
hope,  in  a  talk  of  fountains,  and  sundials.  He  is 
speaking  of  sweet  garden  scenes  : 

What  wondrous  life  is  this  I  lead ! 
Ripe  apples  drop  about  my  head. 
The  luscious  clusters  of  the  vine 
Upon  my  mouth  do  crush  their  wine. 
The  nectarine,  and  curious  peach, 
Into  my  hands  themselves  do  reach. 
Stumbling  on  melons,  as  I  pass, 
Insnared  with  flowers,  I  fall  on  grass. 
Meanwhile  the  mind  from  pleasure  less 
Withdraws  into  its  happiness. 
The  mind,  that  ocean,  where  each  kind 
Does  straight  its  own  resemblance  findj 
Yet  it  creates,  transcending  these, 
Far  other  worlds,  and  other  seas, 
Annihilating  all  that's  made 


153  je^sags  ot  £lla. 

To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade. 

Here  at  the  fountam's  sliding  foot, 

Or  at  some  fruit-tree's  mossy  root, 

Casting  the  body's  vest  aside, 

My  soul  into  the  boughs  does  glide  ; 

There,  like  a  bird,  it  sits  and  sings. 

Then  wets  and  claps  its  silver  wings, 

And,  till  prepared  for  longer  flight, 

Waves  in  its  plumes  the  various  light.- 

How  well  the  skilful  gardener  drev/. 

Of  flowers  and  herbs  this  dial  new. 

Where,  from  above,  the  milder  sun 

Does  through  a  fragrant  zodiac  run  ; 

And,  as  it  works,  the  industrious  bee 

Computes  its  time  as  well  as  we. 

How  could  such  sweet  and  wholesome  hours 

Be  reckon'd,  but  with  herbs  and  flowers.* 


The  artificial  fountains  of  the  metropolis  are,  in 
like  manner,  fast  vanishing.  Most  of  them  are 
dried  up,  or  bricked  over.  Yet,  where  one  is  left, 
as  in  that  little  green  nook  behind  the  South-Sea 
House,  what  a  freshness  it  gives  to  the  dreary 
pile  !  Four  little  winged  marble  boys  used  to 
play  their  virgin  fancies,  spouting  out  ever  fresh 
streams  from  their  innocent  wanton  lips  in  the 
square  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  when  I  was  no  bigger 
than  they  were  figured.  They  are  gone,  and  the 
spring  choked  up.  The  fashion,  they  tell  me,  is 
gone  by,  and  these  things  are  esteemed  childish. 
Why  not  then  gratify  children  by  letting  them 
stand  ?  Lawyers,  I  suppose,  were  children  once. 
They  are  awakening  images  to  them  at  least. 
Why  must  every  thing  smack  of  man  and  man- 
nish ?  Is  the  world  all  grown  up  ?  Is  childhood 
dead.'     Or  is    there   not   in    the    bosoms    of  the 

*  From  a  copy  of  verses  entitled  The  Garden. 


^be  ©ID  JScncbcrs  ot  tbe  ITnncr  ;iemplc.    159 

wisest  and  best  some  of  the  child's  heart  left, 
to  respond  to  its  earliest  enchantments  ?  The 
figures  were  grotesque.  Are  the  stiff-wigged  liv- 
ing figures,  that  still  flitter  and  chatter  about  that 
area,  less  Gothic  in  appearance  ?  or  is  the  splutter 
of  their  hot  rhetoric  one  half  so  refreshing  and 
innocent  as  the  little  cool  playful  streams  those 
exploded  cherubs  uttered  ? 

They  have  lately  Gothicized  the  entrance  to  the 
Inner  Temple  Hall,  and  the  library  front ;  to 
assimilate  them,  I  suppose,  to  the  body  of  the 
hall,  which  they  do  not  at  all  resemble.  What 
has  become  of  the  winged  horse  that  stood  over 
the  former  ?  a  stately  arms  !  and  who  has  removed 
those  frescoes  of  the  virtues,  which  Italianized 
the  end  of  the  Paper  Building.' — my  first  hint  of 
allegory  !  They  must  account  to  me  for  these 
things,  which  I  miss  so  greatly. 

The  terrace  is,  indeed,  left,  which  we  used  to 
call  the  parade  ;  but  the  traces  are  passed  away 
of  the  footsteps  which  made  its  pavement  awful ! 
It  is  become  common  and  profane.  The  old 
benchers  had  it  almost  sacred  to  themselves,  in 
the  forepart  of  the  day  at  least.  They  might  not 
be  sided  or  jostled.  Their  air  and  dress  asserted 
the  parade.  You  left  wide  spaces  betwixt  you, 
when  you  passed  them.  We  walk  on  even  terms 
with    their    successors.        The    roguish    eye    of 

J 11,    ever    ready   to   be   delivered    of  a  jest, 

almost  invites  a  stranger  to  vie  a  repartee  with  it. 
But  what  insolent  familiar  durst  have  mated 
Thomas  Coventry  ? — whose  person  was  a  quad- 
rate, his  step  massy  and  elephantine,  his  face 
square  as  a  lion's,  his  gait  peremptory  and  path- 
keeping,  indivertible  from  his  way  as  a  moving 


i6o  Bssa^s  ot  :eiia. 

column,  the  scarecrow  of  his  inferiors,  the  brow- 
beater  of  equals  and  superiors,  who  made  a  soli- 
tude of  children  wherever  he  came,  for  they  fled 
his  insufferable  presence,  as  they  would  have 
shunned  an  Elisha  bear.  His  growl  was  as  thun- 
der in  their  ears,  whether  he  spake  to  them  in 
mirth  or  in  rebuke,  his  invitatory  notes  being-, 
indeed,  of  all,  the  most  repulsive  and  horrid. 
Clouds  of  snuff,  aggravating  the  natural  terrors  of 
his  speech,  broke  from  each  majestic  nostril, 
darkening  the  air.  He  took  it  not  by  pinches, 
but  a  palmful  at  once,  diving  for  it  under  the 
mighty  flaps  of  his  old-fashioned  waistcoat  pocket ; 
his  waistcoat  red  and  angry,  his  coat  dark  rappee, 
tinctured  by  dye  original,  and  by  adjuncts,  with 
buttons  of  obsolete  gold.  And  so  he  paced  the 
terrace. 

By  his  side  a  milder  form  was  sometimes  to  be 
seen  ;  the  pensive  gentility  of  Samuel  Salt.  They 
were  coevals,  and  had  nothing  but  that  and  their 
benchership  in  common.  In  politics  Salt  was  a 
Whig,  and  Coventry  a  stanch  Tory.  IMany  a  sar- 
castic growl  did  the  latter  cast  out — for  Coventry 
had  a  rough  spinous  humor — at  the  political  con- 
federates of  his  associate,  which  rebounded  from 
the  gentle  bosom  of  the  latter  like  cannon  balls 
from  wool.     You  could  not  ruffle  Samuel  Salt. 

S.  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  very  clever 
man,  and  of  excellent  discernment  in  the  cham- 
ber practice  of  the  law.  I  suspect  his  knowl- 
edge did  not  amount  to  much.  When  a  case  of 
difficult  disposition  of  money,  testamentary  or 
otherwise,  came  before  him,  he  ordinarily  handed 
it  over  with  a  few  instructions  to  his  man  Lovel, 
who  was  a  quick  little  fellow,  and  would  despatch 


XTbe  Olt>  JSencbers  ot  tbe  ITnncr  C^emple.    i6i 

it  out  of  hand  by  the  light  of  natural  understand- 
ing, of  which  he  had  an  uncommon  share.  It 
was  incredible  what  repute  for  talents  S.  enjoyed 
by  the  mere  trick  of  gravity.  He  was  a  shy  man  ; 
a  child  might  pose  him  in  a  minute, — indolent  and 
procrastinating  to  the  last  degree.  Yet  men  would 
give  him  credit  for  vast  application,  in  spite  of 
himself  He  was  not  to  be  trusted  with  himself 
with  impunity.  He  never  dressed  for  a  dinner 
party  but  he  forgot  his  sword — they  wore  swords 
then — or  some  other  necessary  part  of  his  equi- 
page. Lovel  had  his  eye  upon  him  on  all  these 
occasions,  and  ordinarily  gave  him  his  cue.  If 
there  was  any  thing  which  he  could  speak  un- 
seasonably ;  he  was  sure  to  do  it.  He  was  to 
dine  at  a  relative's  of  the  unfortunate  Miss  Blandy 
on  the  day  of  her  execution  ; — and  L.  who  had  a 
wary  foresight  of  his  probable  hallucinations,  be- 
fore he  set  out,  schooled  him  with  great  anxiety 
not  in  any  possible  manner  to  allude  to  her  story 
that  day.  S.  promised  faithfully  to  observe  the 
injunction.  He  had  not  been  seated  in  the  par- 
lor, where  the  company  was  expecting  the  din- 
ner summons,  four  minutes,  when,  a  pause  in  the 
conversation  ensuing,  he  got  up,  looked  out  of  the 
window,  and  pulling  down  his  ruffles — an  ordi- 
nary motion  with  him — observed,  "it  was  a 
gloomy  day,"  and  added,  "  Miss  Blandy  must  be 
hanged  by  this  time,  I  suppose."  Instances  of 
this  sort  were  perpetual.  Yet  S.  was  thought  by 
some  of  the  greatest  men  of  his  time  a  fit  person 
to  be  consulted,  not  alone  in  matters  pertaining 
to  the  law,  but  in  the  ordinary  niceties  and  em- 
barrassments of  conduct — from  force  of  manner 
entirely.     He  never  laughed.     He  had  the  same 


i62  JEssa^s  ot  :!Elia. 

good  fortune  among  the  female  world, — was  a 
known  toast  with  the  ladies,  and  one  or  two  are 
said  to  have  died  for  love  of  him — I  suppose, 
because  he  never  trifled  or  talked  gallantry  with 
them,  or  paid  them,  indeed,  hardly  common 
attentions.  He  had  a  fine  face  and  person,  but 
wanted,  methought,  the  spirit  that  should  have 
shown  them  off  with  advantage  to  the  women. 
His  eye  lacked  lustre.  Not  so,  thought  Susan 
P.  ;  who,  at  the  advanced  age  of  sixty,  was  seen, 
in  the  cold  evening  time,  unaccompanied,  wetting 

the  pavement  of  B d  Row,  with  tears  that  fell 

in  drops  which  might  be  heard,  because  her  friend 
had  died  that  day — he,  whom  she  had  pursued 
with  a  hopeless  passion  for  the  last  forty  years, 
— a  passion,  which  years  could  not  extinguish  or 
abate  ;  nor  the  long-resolved,  yet  gently-enforced, 
puttings  off  of  unrelenting  bachelorhood  dissuade 
from  its  cherished  purpose.  Mild  Susan  P.,  thou 
hast  now  thy  friend  in  heaven  ! 

Thomas  Coventry  was  a  cadet  of  the  noble 
family  of  that  name.  He  passed  his  youth  in 
contracted  circumstances,  which  gave  him  early 
those  parsimonious  habits  which  in  after-hfe  never 
forsook  him  ;  so  that,  with  one  windfall  or  an- 
other, about  the  time  I  knew  him  he  was  master 
of  four  or  five  hundred  thousand  pounds  ;  nor  did 
he  look,  or  walk,  worth  a  moidore  less.  He 
lived  in  a  gloomy  house  opposite  the  pump  in  Ser- 
jeant's Inn,  Fleet  Street.  J.,  the  counsel,  is  doing 
self-imposed  penance  in  it,  for  what  reason  I 
divine  not,  at  this  day.  C.  had  an  agreeable  seat 
at  North  Cray,  where  he  seldom  spent  above  a 
day  or  two  at  a  time  in  the  summer  :  but  preferred, 
during  the  hot  months,  standing  at  his  window  in 


^be  ©ID  :Kcncber5  of  tbe  ITnner  temple.    163 

this  damp,  close,  well-like  mansion,  to  watch,  as 
he  said,  "the  maids  drawing  water  all  day  long." 
I  suspect  he  had  his  within-door  reasons  for  the 
preference.  Hie  ciirrus  et  armafuere.  He  might 
think  his  treasures  more  safe.  His  house  had  the 
aspect  of  a  strong-box.  C.  was  a  close  hunks — 
a  hoarder  rather  than  a  miser — or,  if  a  miser,  none 
of  the  mad  Elwes  breed,  who  have  brought  dis- 
credit upon  a  character,  which  cannot  exist  with- 
out certain  admirable  points  of  steadiness  and  unity 
of  purpose.  One  may  hate  a  true  miser,  but  can- 
not, I  suspect,  so  easily  despise  him.  By  taking 
care  of  the  pence,  he  is  often  enabled  to  part  with 
the  pounds,  upon  a  scale  that  leaves  us  careless 
generous  fellows  halting  at  an  immeasurable  dis- 
tance behind.  C.  gave  away  30,000/.  at  once  in 
his  life-time  to  a  blind  charity.  His  housekeep- 
ing was  severely  looked  after,  but  he  kept  the 
table  of  a  gentleman.  He  would  know  who  came 
in  and  who  went  out  of  his  house,  but  his  kitchen 
chimney  was  never  suffered  to  freeze. 

Salt  was  his  opposite  in  this,  as  in  all — never 
knew  what  he  was  worth  in  the  world  ;  and  having 
but  a  competency  for  his  rank,  which  his  indolent 
habits  were  little  calculated  to  improve,  might 
have  suffered  severely  if  he  had  not  had  honest 
people  about  him.  Lovel  took  care  of  every  thing. 
He  was  at  once  his  clerk,  his  good  servant, 
his  dresser,  his  friend,  his  "flapper,"  his  guide, 
stop-watch,  auditor,  treasurer.  He  did  nothing 
without  consulting  Lovel,  or  failed  in  any  thing 
without  expecting  and  fearing  his  admonishing. 
He  put  himself  almost  too  much  in  his  hands,  had 
they  not  been  the  purest  in  the  world.  He  re- 
signed his  title  almost  to  respect  as  a  master,  if 


1 64  B50ai2S  of  iBiia, 

L.  could  ever  have  forgotten  for  a  moment  that 
he  was  a  servant. 

I  knew  this  Lovel.  He  was  a  man  of  an  incor- 
rigible and  losing  honesty.  A  good  fellow  withal, 
and  ''would  stride.''  In  the  cause  of  the  op- 
pressed he  never  considered  inequalities,  or  cal- 
culated the  number  of  his  opponents.  He  once 
wrested  a  sword  out  of  the  hand  of  a  man  of 
quality  that  had  drawn  upon  him,  and  pummelled 
him  severely  with  the  hilt  of  it.  The  swordsman 
had  offered  insult  to  a  female — an  occasion  upon 
which  no  odds  against  him  could  have  prevented 
the  interference  of  Lovel.  He  would  stand  next 
day  bareheaded  to  the  same  person,  modestly  to 
excuse  his  interference — for  L.  never  forgot  rank, 
where  something  better  was  not  concerned.  L. 
was  the  liveliest  little  fellow  breathing,  had  a  face 
as  gay  as  Garrick's,  whom  he  was  said  greatly  to 
resemble  (I  have  a  portrait  of  him  which  con- 
firms it),  possessed  a  tine  turn  for  humorous  poetry 
— next  to  Swift  and  Prior — moulded  heads  in  clay 
or  plaster-of-Paris  to  admiration,  by  the  dint  of 
natural  genius  merely  ;  turned  cribbage  boards, 
and  such  small  cabinet  toys,  to  perfection  ;  took 
a  hand  at  quadrille  or  bowls  with  equal  facility  ; 
made  punch  better  than  any  man  of  his  degree  in 
England  ;  had  the  merriest  quips  and  conceits  ; 
and  was  altogether  as  brimful  of  rogueries  and  in- 
ventions as  you  could  desire.  He  was  a  brother 
of  the  angle,  moreover,  andjustsuchafree,  hearty, 
honest  companion  as  ]\Ir.  Isaak  Walton  would 
have  chosen  to  go  a-fishing  with.  I  saw  him  in 
his  old  age  and  the  decay  of  his  faculties,  palsy- 
smitten,  in  the  last  sad  stage  of  human  weakness 
—  "a  remnant  most  forlorn  of  what  he  was," — 


Cbe  ©ID  JJencbers  of  tbe  IFnner  c:emple.    165 

yet  even  then  his  eye  would  light  up  upon  the 
mention  of  his  favorite  Garrick.  He  was  greatest 
he  would  say,  in  Bayes — "was  upon  the  stage 
nearly  throughout  the  whole  performance,  and  as 
busy  as  a  bee.''  At  intervals,  too,  he  would 
speak  of  his  former  life,  and  how  he  came  up  a 
little  boy  from  Lincoln  to  go  to  service,  and  how 
his  mother  cried  at  parting  with  him,  and  how  he 
returned,  after  some  few  years'  absence,  in  his 
smart  new  livery,  to  see  her,  and  she  blessed  her- 
self at  the  change,  and  could  hardly  be  brought 
to  believe  that  it  was  **her  own  bairn."  And 
then,  the  excitement  subsiding,  he  would  weep, 
till  I  have  wished  that  sad  second  childhood  might 
have  a  mother  still  to  lay  its  head  upon  her  lap. 
But  the  common  mother  of  us  all  in  no  long  time 
after  received  him  gently  into  hers. 

With  Coventry,  and  with  Salt,  in  their  walks 
upon  the  terrace,  most  commonly  Peter  Pierson 
would  join  to  make  up  a  third.  They  did  not 
walk  linked  arm  in  arm  in  those  days — "as  now 
our  stout  triumvirs  sweep  the  streets," — but  gen- 
erally with  both  hands  folded  behind  them  for 
state,  or  with  one  at  least  behind,  the  other  carry- 
ing a  cane.  P.  was  a  benevolent,  but  not  a  pre- 
possessing man.  He  had  that  in  his  face  which 
you  could  not  term  unhappiness  ;  it  rather  im- 
plied an  incapacity  of  being  happy.  His  cheeks 
were  colorless  even  to  whiteness.  His  look  was 
uninviting,  resembling  (but  without  his  sourness) 
that  of  our  great  philanthropist.  I  know  that  he 
did  good  acts,  but  I  could  never  make  out  what 
he  was.  Contemporary  with  these,  but  subordi- 
nate, was  DainesBarrington — another  oddity.  Pie 
walked  burly  and  square — in  imitation,    I  think, 


1 66  Bssass  of  Blia. 

of  Coventry — howbeit  he  attained  not  to  the  dig- 
nity of  his  prototype.  Nevertheless,  he  did  pretty 
well,  upon  the  strength  of  being  a  tolerable  anti- 
quarian, and  having  a  brother  a  bishop.  When 
the  account  of  his  year  s  treasurership  came  to  be 
audited,  the  following  singular  charge  was  unan- 
imously disallowed  by  the  bench:  "Item,  dis- 
bursed I\Ir.  Allen,  the  gardener,  twenty  shillings, 
for  stuff  to  poison  the  sparrows,  by  my  orders." 
Next  to  him  was  old  Barton — a  jolly  negation, 
who  took  upon  him  the  ordering  of  the  bills  of 
fare  for  the  parliament  chamber,  where  the 
benchers  dine — answering  to  the  combination 
rooms  at  College — much  to  the  easement  of  his 
less  epicurean  brethren.  I  know  nothing  more 
of  him.  Then  Read,  and  Twopenny — Read, 
good-humored  and  personable — Twopenny,  good- 
humored,  but  thin,  and  felicitous  in  jests  upon  his 
own  figure.  If  T.  was  thin,  Wharry  was  attenu- 
ated and  fleeting.  Many  must  remember  him 
(for  he  was  rather  of  later  date)  and  his  singular 
gait,  which  was  performed  by  three  steps  and  a 
jump  regularly  succeeding.  The  steps  were  little 
efforts,  like  that  of  a  child  beginning  to  walk  ;  the 
jump  comparatively  vigorous,  as  a  foot  to  an  inch. 
Where  he  learned  this  figure,  or  what  occasioned 
it,  I  could  never  discover.  It  was  neither  grace- 
ful in  itself,  nor  seemed  to  answer  the  purpose 
any  better  than  common  walking.  The  extreme 
tenuity  of  his  frame,  I  suspect,  set  him  upon  it. 
It  was  a  trial  of  poising.  Twopenny  would  often 
rally  him  upon  his  leanness,  and  hail  him  as 
brother  Lusty  ;  but  W.  had  no  relish  of  a  joke. 
His  features  were  spiteful.  I  have  heard  that  he 
would   pinch   his  cat's  ears  extremely,  when  any 


XLbc  ©l&  JBencbers  of  tbc  ITnner  temple.    167 

thin^  had  offended  him.  Jackson, — the  omnis- 
cient Jackson  he  was  called — was  of  this  period. 
He  had  the  reputation  of  possessing-  more  multi- 
farious knowledge  than  any  man  of  his  time.  He 
was  the  Friar  Bacon  of  the  less  literate  portion  of 
the  Temple.  I  remember  a  pleasant  passage,  of 
the  cook  applying  to  him,  with  much  formality  of 
apology,  for  instructions  how  to  write  down  edj^e 
bone  of  beef  in  his  bill  of  commons.  He  was 
supposed  to  know,  if  any  man  in  the  world  did. 
He  decided  the  orthography  to  be  as  I  have  given 
it — fortifying  his  authority  with  such  anatomical 
reasons  as  dismissed  the  manciple  (for  the  time) 
learned  and  happy.  Some  do  spell  it  yet,  per- 
versely, ai'/ch  bone,  from  a  fanciful  resemblance 
between  its  shape  and  that  of  the  aspirate  so  de- 
nominated. I  had  almost  forgotten  Mingay  with 
the  iron  hand — but  he  was  somewhat  later.  He 
had  lost  his  right  hand  by  some  accident,  and 
supplied  it  with  a  grappling-hook,  which  he 
wielded  with  a  tolerable  adroitness.  I  detected 
the  substitute  before  I  was  old  enough  to  reason 
whether  it  were  artificial  or  not.  1  remember  the 
astonishment  it  raised  in  me.  He  was  a  bluster- 
ing-, loud-talking  person  ;  and  I  reconciled  the 
phenomenon  to  my  ideas  as  an  emblem  of  power 
■ — somewhat  like  the  horns  in  the  forehead  of 
Michael  Angelo's  Moses.  Baron  Maseres,  who 
walks  (or  did  till  very  lately)  in  the  costume  of 
the  reign  of  George  the  Second,  closes  my  imper- 
fect recollections  of  the  old  benchers  of  the  Inner 
Temple. 

Fantastic  forms,  whither  are  you  fled  ?  Or,  if  the 
like  of  you  exist,  why  exist  they  no  more  for  me.-* 
Ve  inexplicable  half-understood  appearances,  why 


1 68  B53a^3  of  sua. 

comes  in  reason  to  tear  away  the  preternatural 
mist,  bright  or  gloomy,  that  enshrouded  you? 
Why  make  ye  so  sorry  a  figure  in  my  relation, 
who  made  up  to  me — to  my  childish  eyes — the 
mythology  of  the  Temple  ?  In  those  days  I  saw 
gods  as  "old  men  covered  with  a  mantle,"  walk- 
ing upon  the  earth.  Let  the  dreams  of  classic 
idplatry  perish — extinct  be  the  fairies  and  fairy 
trumpery  of  legendary  fabling,  in  the  heart  of 
childhood,  there  will,  forever,  spring  up  a  well  of 
innocent  or  wholesome  superstition, — the  seeds 
of  exaggeration  will  be  busy  there,  and  vital — • 
from  every-day  forms  educing  the  unknown  and 
the  uncommon.  In  that  little  Goshen  there  will 
be  light,  when  the  grown  world  flounders  about 
in  the  darkness  of  sense  and  materiality.  While 
childhood,  and  while  dreams,  reducing  childhood, 
shall  be  left,  imagination  shall  not  have  spread 
her  holy  wings  totally  to  fly  the  earth. 

P.  S. — I  have  done  injustice  to  the  soft  shade  of 
Samuel  Salt.  See  what  it  is  to  trust  to  imperfect 
memory,  and  the  erring  notices  of  childhood ! 
Yet  I  protest  I  always  thought  that  he  had  been 
a  bachelor  !  This  gentleman,  R.  N.  informs  me, 
married  young,  and  losing  his  lady  in  childbed, 
within  the  first  year  of  their  union,  fell  into  a  deep 
melancholy,  from  the  effects  of  which  probably 
he  never  thoroughly  recovered.  In  what  a  new 
light  does  this  place  his  rejection  (O  call  it  by  a 
gentler  name  !)  of  mild  Susan  P.,  unravelhng  into 
beauty  certain  peculiarities  of  this  shy  and  retir- 
ing character !  Henceforth,  let  no  one  receive 
the  narratives  of  Elia  for  true  records  !  They  are, 
in  truth,  but  shadows  of  fact — verisimilitudes,  not 


^be  ®ID  :©encbcr6  ot  tbc  Unner  temple.    169 

verities — or  sitting  but  upon  the  remote  edges  and 
outskirts  of  history.  He  is  no  such  honest  chron- 
icler as  R.  N.,  and  would  have  done  better  per- 
haps to  have  consulted  that  gentleman,  before  he 
sent  these  incondite  reminiscences  to  press.  But 
the  worthy  sub-treasurer — who  respects  his  old 
and  his  new  masters — would  but  have  been  puz- 
zled at  the  indecorous  liberties  of  Elia.  The  good 
man  wots  not,  peradventure,  of  the  license  which 
Magazines  have  arrived  at  in  this  plain-speaking 
age,  or  hardly  dreams  of  their  existence  beyond 
the  Gentleman  s — his  farthest  monthly  excursions 
in  this  nature  having  been  long  confined  to  the 
holy  ground  of  honest  Urban' s  obituary.  IMay  it 
be  long  before  his  own  name  shall  help  to  swell 
those  columns  of  unenvied  flattery  !  Meantime,  O 
ye  New  Benchers  of  the  Inner  Temple,  cherish 
him  kindly,  for  he  is  himself  the  kindliest  of  human 
creatures.  Should  infirmities  overtake  him — 
he  is  yet  in  green  and  vigorous  senility — make 
allowance  for  them,  remembering  that  "  ye  your- 
selves are  old. ''  So  may  the  Winged  Horse,  your 
ancient  badge  and  cognizance,  still  flourish  !  so 
may  future  Hookers  and  Seldens  illustrate  your 
church  and  chambers  !  so  may  the  sparrows,  in 
default  of  more  melodious  choristers,  un poisoned, 
hop  about  your  walks  !  so  may  the  fresh-colored 
and  cleanly  nursery-maid,  who,  by  leave,  airs  her 
playful  charge  in  your  stately  gardens,  drop  her 
prettiest  blushing  curtsey  as  ye  pass,  reductive  of 
juvenescent  emotion  !  so  may  the  younkers  of 
this  generation  eye  you,  pacing  your  stately  ter- 
race, with  the  same  superstitious  veneration,  with 
which  the  child  Elia  gazed  on  the  Old  Worthies 
that  solemnized  the  parade  before  ye  ! 


GRACE  BEFORE  MEAT. 


The  custom  of  saying  grace  at  meals  had, 
probably,  its  origin  in  the  early  times  of  the 
world,  and  the  hunter  state  of  man,  when  dinners 
were  precarious  things,  and  a  full  meal  was  some- 
thing more  than  a  common  blessing  !  when  a 
bellyful  was  a  windfall,  and  looked  like  a  special 
providence.  In  the  shouts  and  triumphal  songs 
with  which,  after  a  season  of  sharp  abstinence,  a 
lucky  booty  of  deer's  or  goat's  flesh  would  natu- 
rally be  ushered  home,  existed,  perhaps,  the  germ 
of  the  modern  grace.  It  is  not  otherwise  easy  to 
be  understood,  why  the  blessing  of  food — the 
act  of  eating — should  have  had  a  particular  ex- 
pression of  thanksgiving  annexed  to  it,  distinct 
from  that  implied  and  silent  gratitude  with  which 
we  are  expected  to  enter  upon  the  enjoyment  of 
the  many  other  various  gifts  and  good  things  of 
existence. 

I  own  that  I  am  disposed  to  say  grace  upon 
twenty  other  occasions  in  the  course  of  the  day 
besides  my  dinner.  I  want  a  form  for  setting 
out  upon  a  pleasant  walk,  for  a  moonlight  ramble, 
for  a  friendly  meeting,  or  a  solved  problem. 
Why  have  we  none  for  books,  those  spiritual 
repasts — a  grace  before  Milton — a  grace  before 
Shakspeare — a  devotional  exercise  proper  to  be 
170 


(Brace  :©etore  ^eat.  171 

said  before  reading  the  **  Fairy  Queen"? — but 
the  received  ritual  having  prescribed  these  forms 
to  the  solitary  ceremony  of  manducation,  I  shall 
confine  my  observation  to  the  experience  which 
I  have  had  of  the  grace,  properly  so  called, — 
commending  my  new  scheme  for  extension  to  a 
niche  in  the  grand  philosophical,  poetical,  and 
perchance  in  part  heretical,  liturgy,  now  compil- 
ing by  my  friend  Homo  Humanus,  for  the  use  of 
a  certain  snug  congregation  of  Utopian  Rabelse- 
sian  Christians,  no  matter  where  assembled. 

The  form,  then,  of  the  benediction  before  eat- 
ing has  its  beauty  at  a  poor  man's  table,  or  at 
the  simple  and  unprovocative  repast  of  children. 
It  is  here  that  the  grace  becomes  exceedingly 
graceful.  The  indigent  man,  who  hardly  knows 
whether  he  shall  have  a  meal  the  next  day  or  not, 
sits  down  to  his  fare  with  a  present  sense  of  the 
blessing,  which  can  be  but  feebly  acted  by  the 
rich,  into  whose  minds  the  conception  of  wanting 
a  dinner  could  never,  but  by  some  extreme  theory, 
have  entered.  The  proper  end  of  food — the  ani- 
mal sustenance — is  barely  contemplated  by  them. 
The  poor  man's  bread  is  his  daily  bread,  literally 
his  bread  for  the  day.  Their  courses  are  peren- 
nial. 

Again,  the  plainest  diet  seems  the  fittest  to  be 
preceded  by  the  grace.  That  which  is  least 
stimulative  to  appetite,  leaves  the  mind  most  free 
for  foreign  considerations.  A  man  may  feel  thank- 
ful, heartily  thankful,  over  a  dish  of  plain  mutton 
with  turnips,  and  have  leisure  to  reflect  upon  the 
ordinance  and  institution  of  eating ;  when  he 
shall  confess  a  perturbation  of  mind,  inconsistent 
with  the  purposes  of  the  grace,  at  the  presence  of 


-72  Bs5a^6  ot  iBlia, 

venison  or  turtle.  When  I  have  sat  (a  rarus 
hospes)  at  rich  men's  tables,  with  the  savory  soup 
and  messes  steaming- up  the  nostrils,  and  moisten- 
ing the  lips  of  the  guests  with  desire  and  a  dis- 
tracted choice,  I  have  felt  the  introduction  of  that 
ceremony  to  be  unseasonable.  With  the  ravenous 
orgasm  upon  you,  it  seems  impertinent  to  inter- 
pose a  religious  sentiment.  It  is  a  confusion  of 
purpose  to  mutter  out  praises  from  a  mouth  that 
waters.  The  heats  of  epicurism  put  out  the  gentle 
flame  of  devotion.  The  incense  which  rises 
round  is  pagan,  and  the  bellygod  intercepts  it  for 
his  own.  The  very  excess  of  the  provision  be- 
yond the  needs,  takes  away  all  sense  of  propor- 
tion between  the  end  and  the  means.  The  giver 
is  veiled  by  his  gifts.  You  are  startled  at  the  in- 
justice of  returning  thanks — for  what  ? — for  having 
too  much,  while  so  many  starve.  It  is  to  praise 
the  gods  amiss. 

I  have  observed  this  awkwardness  felt,  scarce 
consciously  perhaps,  by  the  good  man  who  says 
the  grace.  1  have  seen  it  in  clergymen  and 
others — a  sort  of  shame — a  sense  of  the  co-pres- 
ence of  circumstances  which  unhallow  the  bless- 
ing. After  a  devotional  tone  put  on  for  a  few 
seconds,  how  rapidly  the  speaker  will  fall  into 
his  common  voice  !  helping  himself  or  his  neigh- 
bor, as  if  to  get  rid  of  some  uneasy  sensation  of 
hypocrisy.  Not  that  the  good  man  was  a  hypo- 
crite, or  was  not  most  conscientious  in  the  dis- 
charge of  the  duty  ;  but  he  felt  in  his  inmost  mind 
the  incompatibility  of  the  scene  and  the  viands 
before  him  with  the  exercises  of  a  calm  and 
rational  gratitude. 

1    hear   somebody  exclaim — Would   you    have 


©race  asetorc  /iReat.  173 

Christians  sit  down  at  table,  like  hogs  to  their 
troughs,  without  remembering  the  Giver  ? — no, 
— I  would  have  them  sit  down  as  Christians, 
remembering  the  Giver,  and  less  like  hogs.  Or  if 
their  appetites  must  run  riot,  and  they  must  pam- 
per themselves  with  delicacies  for  which  east  and 
west  are  ransacked,  I  would  have  them  postpone 
their  benediction  to  a  fitter  season,  when  appetite 
is  laid  ;  when  the  still  small  voice  can  be  heard, 
and  the  reason  of  the  grace  returns — with  tem- 
perate diet  and  restricted  dishes.  Gluttony  and 
surfeiting  are  no  proper  occasions  for  thanksgiv- 
ing. When  Jeshurun  waxed  fat,  we  read  that  he 
kicked.  Virgil  knew  the  harpy-nature  better, 
when  he  put  into  the  mouth  of  Celseno  any  thing 
but  a  blessing.  We  may  be  gratefully  sensible  of 
the  deliciousness  of  some  kinds  of  food  beyond 
others,  though  that  is  a  meaner  and  inferior  grati- 
tude ;  but  the  proper  object  of  the  grace  is  sus- 
tenance, not  relishes  ;  daily  bread,  not  delicacies  ; 
the  means  of  life,  and  not  the  means  of  pampering 
the  carcass.  With  what  frame  or  composure,  I 
wonder,  can  a  city  chaplain  pronounce  his  bene- 
diction at  some  great  Hall-feast,  when  he  knows 
that  his  last  concluding  pious  word — and  that, 
in  all  probability,  the  sacred  name  which  he 
preaches  is  but  the  signal  for  so  many  impatient 
harpies  to  commence  their  foul  orgies,  with  as 
little  sense  of  true  thankfulness  (which  is  tem- 
perance) as  those  Virgilian  fowl !  It  is  well  if  the 
good  man  himself  does  not  feel  his  devotions  a 
little  clouded,  those  foggy  sensuous  steams  min- 
gling with  and  polluting  the  pure  altar  sacrifice. 

The  severest  satire  upon  full  tables  and  surfeits 
is    the   banquet    which   Satan,    in    the   Paradise 


174  J£6sai20  of  leiia. 

Regained,  provides  for  a  temptation  in  the  wil- 
derness : 

A  table  richly  spread  in  regal  mode 
With  dishes  piled,  and  meats  of  noblest  sort 
And  savor;  beasts  of  chase,  or  fowl  of  game, 
In  pastry  built,  or  from  the  spit,  or  boiled, 
Gris-amber-steamed  ;  all  fish  from  sea  or  shore, 
Freshet  or  purling  brook,  for  which  was  drained 
Pontus,  and  Lucrine  bay,  and  Afric  coast. 

The  Tempter,  I  warrant  you,  thought  these  cates 
would  go  down  without  the  recommendatory 
preface  of  a  benediction.  They  are  like  to  be  short 
graces  where  the  Devil  plays  the  host.  I  am  afraid 
the  poet  wants  his  usual  decorum  in  this  place. 
Was  he  thinking  of  the  old  Roman  luxury,  or  of 
a  gaudy  day  at  Cambridge  ?  This  was  a  tempta- 
tion fitter  for  a  Heliogabalus.  The  whole  banquet 
is  too  civic  and  culinary,  and  the  accompaniments 
altogether  a  profanation  of  that  deep,  abstracted 
holy  scene.  The  mighty  artillery  of  sauces,  which 
the  cook-fiend  conjures  up,  is  out  of  proportion  to 
the  simple  wants  and  plain  hunger  of  the  guests. 
He  that  disturbed  him  in  his  dreams,  from  his 
dreams  might  have  been  taught  better.  To  the 
temperate  fantasies  of  the  famished  Son  of  God, 
what  sort  of  feasts  presented  themselves.? — He 
dreamed  indeed. 

As  appetite  is  wont  to  dream, 
Of  meats  and  drinks,  nature's  refreshment  sweet. 

But  what  meats  ? 

Him  thought,  he  by  the  brook  of  Cherith  stood, 

And  saw  the  ravens  with  their  horny  beaks 

Food  to  Elijah  bringing  even  and  mom; 

Though  ravenous,  taught  to  abstain  from  what  they  brought: 


(3race  Before  jflBeat.  175 

He  saw  the  prophet  also  how  he  fled 

Into  the  desert,  and  how  there  he  slept 

Under  a  Juniper;  then  how  awaked 

He  found  his  supper  on  the  coals  prepared 

And  by  the  angel  was  bid  rise  and  eat, 

And  ate  the  second  time  after  repose, 

The  strength  whereof  sufficed  him  forty  days ; 

Sometimes,  that  with  Elijah  he  partook, 

Or  as  a  guest  with  Daniel  at  his  pulse. 

Nothing  in  Milton  is  finelier  fancied  than  these 
temperate  dreams  of  the  divine  Hungerer.  To 
which  of  these  two  visionary  banquets,  think  you, 
would  the  introduction  of  what  is  called  the  grace 
have  been  the  most  fitting  and  pertinent? 

Theoretically  I  am  no  enemy  to  graces  ;  but 
practically  I  own  that  (before  meat  especially)  they 
seem  to  involve  something  awkward  and  unsea- 
sonable. Our  appetites,  of  one  or  another  kind, 
are  excellent  spurs  to  our  reason,  which  might 
otherwise  but  feebly  set  about  the  great  ends  of 
preserving  and  continuing  the  species.  They  are 
fit  blessings  to  be  contemplated  at  a  distance  with 
a  becoming  gratitude ;  but  the  moment  of  appe- 
tite (the  judicious  reader  will  apprehend  me)  is, 
perhaps,  the  least  fit  season  for  that  exercise.  The 
Quakers,  who  go  about  their  business  of  every  de- 
scription with  more  calmness  than  we,  have  more 
title  to  the  use  of  these  benedictory  prefaces.  I 
have  always  admired  their  silent  grace,  and  the 
more  because  I  have  observed  their  applications 
to  the  meat  and  drink  following  to  be  less  passion- 
ate and  sensual  than  ours.  They  are  neither  glut- 
tons nor  wine-bibbers  as  a  people.  They  eat,  as 
a  horse  bolts  his  chopped  hay,  with  indifference, 
calmness,  and  cleanly  circumstances.  They 
neither  grease  nor  slop  themselves.     When  I  see 


176  iBssdi^e  ot  Blia. 

a  citizen  in  his  bib  and  tucker,  I 
it  a  surplice. 

I  am  no  Quaker  at  my  food.  I  confess  I  am 
not  indifferent  to  the  kinds  of  it.  Those  unctuous 
morsels  of  deer's  flesh  were  not  made  to  be  re- 
ceived with  dispassionate  services.  I  hate  a  man 
who  swallows  it,  affecting  not  to  know  what  he 
is  eating.  I  suspect  his  taste  in  higher  matters. 
I  shrink  instinctively  from  one  who  professes  to 
like  minced  veal.  There  is  a  physiognomical 
character  in  the  tastes  for  food.  C.  holds  that 
a  man  cannot  have  a  pure  mind  who  refuses 
apple-dumplings.  I  am  not  certain  but  he  is  right. 
With  the  decay  of  my  first  innocence,  I  confess  a 
less  and  less  relish  daily  for  those  innocuous  cates. 
The  whole  vegetable  tribe  have  lost  their  gust  with 
me.  Only  I  stick  to  asparagus,  which  still  seems 
to  inspire  gentle  thoughts.  I  am  impatient  and 
querulous  under  culinary  disappointments,  as  to 
come  home  at  the  dinner  hour,  for  instance,  ex- 
pecting some  savory  mess,  and  to  find  one  quite 
tasteless  and  sapidless.  Butter  ill  melted — that 
commonest  of  kitchen  failures — puts  me  beside 
my  tenor.  The  author  of  the  "Rambler  "  used 
to  make  inarticulate  animal  noises  over  a  favorite 
food.  Was  this  the  music  quite  proper  to  be  pre- 
ceded by  the  grace  ?  or  would  the  pious  man  have 
done  better  to  postpone  his  devotions  to  a  season 
when  the  blessing  might  be  contemplated  with 
less  perturbation  ?  I  quarrel  with  no  man's  tastes, 
nor  would  set  my  thin  face  against  those  excellent 
things,  in  their  way,  jollity  and  feasting.  But  as 
these  exercises,  however  laudable,  have  little  in 
them  of  grace  or  gracefulness,  a  man  should  be 
sure,  before  he  ventures  so  to  grace  them,  that 


©race  JSetore  /IReat.  177 

while  he  is  pretending  his  devotions  otherwhere, 
he  is  not  secretly  kissing  his  hand  to  some  great 
fish — his  Dagon — with  a  special  consecration  of 
no  ark  but  the  fat  tureen  before  him.  Graces  are 
the  sweet  preluding  strains  to  the  banquets  of 
angels  and  children  ;  to  the  roots  and  severer 
repasts  of  the  Chartreuse  ;  to  the  slender,  but  not 
slenderly  acknowledged,  refection  of  the  poor  and 
humble  man  ;  but  at  the  heaped-up  boards  of  the 
pampered  and  the  luxurious  they  become  of  dis- 
sonant mood,  less  timed  and  tuned  to  the  occa- 
sion, methinks,  than  the  noise  of  those  better 
befitting  organs  would  be  which  children  hear 
tales  of,  at  Hog's  Norton.  We  sit  too  long  at  our 
meals,  or  are  too  curious  in  the  study  of  them, 
or  too  disordered  in  our  application  to  them,  or 
engross  too  great  a  portion  of  those  good  things 
(which  should  be  common)  to  our  share,  to  be 
able  with  any  grace  to  say  grace.  To  be  thank- 
ful for  what  we  grasp  exceeding  our  proportion, 
is  to  add  hypocrisy  to  injustice.  A  lurking  sense 
of  this  truth  is  what  makes  the  performance  of  this 
duty  so  cold  and  spiritless  a  service  at  most  tables. 
In  houses  where  the  grace  is  as  indispensable  as 
the  napkin,  who  has  not  seen  that  never-settled 
question  arise,  as  to  wlio  shall  say  it  P  while  the 
good  man  of  the  house  and  the  visitor  clergyman, 
or  some  other  guest,  belike  of  next  authority, 
from  years  of  gravity,  shall  be  bandying  about 
the  office  between  them  as  a  matter  of  compli- 
ment, each  of  them  not  unwilling  to  shift  the 
awkward  burden  of  an  equivocal  duty  from  his 
own  shoulders  ? 

I  once  drank  tea  in  company  with  two  Metho- 
dist divines  of  different  persuasions,  whom  it  was 
12 


lyS  lEssa^s  of  jeua, 

my  fortune  to  introduce  to  eacli  other  for  the  first 
time  that  evening.  Before  the  first  cup  was 
handed  around,  one  of  these  reverend  gentlemen 
put  it  to  the  other,  with  all  due  solemnity,  whether 
he  chose  to  say  any  thing.  It  seems  it  is  the 
custom  with  some  sectaries  to  put  up  a  short 
prayer  before  this  meal  also.  His  reverend  brother 
did  not  at  first  quite  apprehend  him,  but  upon  an 
explanation,  with  little  less  importance  he  made 
answer  that  it  was  not  a  custom  known  to  his 
church ;  in  which  courteous  evasion  the  other 
acquiescing  for  good  manners'  sake,  or  in  compli- 
ance with  a  weak  brother,  the  supplementary  or 
tea-grace  w^as  waived  altogether.  With  what 
spirit  might  not  Lucian  have  painted  two  priests 
of  his  religion  playing  into  each  other's  hands  the 
compliment  of  performing  or  omitting  a  sacrifice — 
the  hungry  God  meantime,  doubtful  of  his  incense, 
w^ith  expectant  nostrils  hovering  over  the  two 
flamens,  and  (as  between  two  stools)  going  away 
in  the  end  without  his  supper. 

A  short  form  upon  these  occasions  is  felt  to  want 
reverence  ;  along  one,  lam  afraid,  cannot  escape 
the  charge  of  impertinence.  I  do  not  quite  ap- 
prove of  the  epigrammatic  conciseness  with  which 
that  equivocal  wag  (but  my  pleasant  school-fellow) 
C.  V.  L.,  Avhen  importuned  for  a  grace,  used  to 
inquire,  first  slyly  leering  down  the  table,  "Is 
there  no  clergyman  here  ? '" — significantly  adding, 

"Thank   G .''    Nor  do  I  think  our  old  form  at 

school  quite  pertinent,  where  we  were  used  to 
preface  our  bald  bread-and-cheese  suppers  with  a 
preamble,  connecting  with  that  humble  blessing  a 
recognition  of  benefits  the  most  awful  and  over- 
whelming to  the  imagination  which  religion  has 


Orace  'Mctoxc  /iReat.  179 

to  offer.  A^on  tunc  illis  erat  locus.  I  remember 
we  were  put  to  it  to  reconcile  the  phrase  "good 
creatures,"  upon  which  the  blessing  rested,  with  the 
fare  set  before  us,  wilfully  understanding  that  ex- 
pression in  a  low  and  animal  sense — till  some  one 
recalled  a  legend,  which  told  how,  in  the  golden 
days  of  Christ's,  the  young  Hospitallers  were 
wont  to  have  some  smoking  joints  of  roast  meat 
upon  their  nightly  boards,  till  some  pious  bene- 
factor, commiserating  the  decencies,  rather  than 
the  palates,  of  the  children,  commuted  our  flesh 
for  garments,  and  gave  us — horresco  referens — 
trousers  instead  of  mutton. 


DREAM-CHILDREN  ;   A  REVERY. 


Children  love  to  listen  to  stories  about  their 
elders,  when  they  were  children  ;  to  stretch  their 
imagination  to  the  conception  of  a  traditionary 
great-uncle,  or  grandame,  whom  they  never  saw. 
It  was  in  this  spirit  that  my  little  ones  crept  about 
me  the  other  evening  to  hear  about  their  great- 
grandmother  Field,  who  lived  in  a  great  house  in 
Norfolk  (a  hundred  times  bigger  than  that  in 
which  they  and  papa  lived)  which  had  been  the 
scene — so  at  least  it  was  generally  believed  in 
that  part  of  the  country — of  the  tragic  incidents 
which  they  had  lately  become  familiar  with  from 
the  ballad  of  the  Children  in  the  Wood.  Certain 
it  is  that  the  whole  story  of  the  children  and  their 
cruel  uncle  was  to  be  seen  fairly  carved  out  in 
wood  upon  the  chimney-piece  of  the  great  hall, 
the  whole  story  down  to  the  Robin  Redbreasts  ; 
till  a  foolish  rich  person  pulled  it  down  to  set  up  a 
marble  one  of  modern  invention  in  its  stead,  with 
no  stQry  upon  it.  Here  Alice  put  out  one  of  her 
dear  mother's  looks,  too  tender  to  be  called  up- 
braiding. Then  I  went  on  to  say  how  religious 
and  how  good  their  great-grandmother  Field  was, 
how  beloved  and  respected  by  everybody,  though 
she  was  not  indeed  the  mistress  of  this  great 
house,  but  had  only  the  charge  of  it  (and  yet  ia 
i8o 


2)ream:=Cbfl&ren ;  B  IRevens.  i8i 

some  respects  she  might  be  said  to  be  the  mistress 
of  it  too)  committed  to  her  by  the  owner,  who 
preferred  living  in  a  newer  and  more  fashionable 
mansion  which  he  had  purchased  somewhere  in 
the  adjoining  county  ;  but  still  she  lived  in  it  in  a 
manner  as  if  it  had  been  her  own,  and  kept  up  the 
dignity  of  the  great  house  in  a  sort  while  she 
lived,  which  afterwards  came  to  decay,  and  was 
nearly  pulled  down,  and  all  its  old  ornaments 
stripped  and  carried  away  to  the  owner's  other 
house,  where  they  were  set  up,  and  looked  as  awk- 
ward as  if  some  one  were  to  carry  away  the  old 
tombs  they  had  seen  lately  at  the  Abbey,  and 
stick  them  up  in  Lady  C.  's  tawdry  gilt  drawing- 
room.  Here  John  smiled,  as  much  as  to  say, 
"that  would  be  foolish  indeed."  And  then  I 
told  how,  when  she  came  to  die,  her  funeral 
was  attended  by  a  concourse  of  all  the  poor, 
and  some  of  the  gentry  too,  of  the  neighbor- 
hood for  many  miles  round,  to  show  their  re- 
spect for  her  memory,  because  she  had  been 
such  a  good  and  religious  woman  ;  so  good  indeed 
that  she  knew  all  the  Psaltery  by  heart,  ay,  and  a 
great  part  of  the  Testament  besides.  Here  little 
Alice  spread  her  hands.  Then  I  told  wdiat  a  tall, 
upright,  graceful  person  their  great-grandmother 
Field  once  was  ;  and  how  in  her  youth  she  was 
esteemed  the  best  dancer, — here  Alice's  little  right 
foot  pla3^ed  an  involuntary  movement,  till,  upon 
my  looking  grave,  it  desisted, — the  best  dancer,  I 
was  saying,  in  the  county,  till  a  cruel  disease,  called 
a  cancer,  came,  and  bowed  her  down  with  pain  ; 
but  it  could  never  bend  her  good  spirits,  or  make 
them  stoop,  but  they  were  still  upright,  because 
she  was  so  good  and  religious.     Then  I  told  how 


1 82  JBsB^^s  of  BIta. 

she  was  used  to  sleep  by  herself  in  a  lone  cham- 
ber of  the  great  lone  house  ;  and  how  she  believed 
that  an  apparition  of  two  infants  was  to  be  seen 
at  midnight  gliding  up  and  down  the  great  stair- 
case near  where  she  slept,  but  she  said  "those 
innocents  would  do  her  no  harm"  ;  and  how 
frightened  I  used  to  be,  though  in  those  days  I  had 
my  maid  to  sleep  wdth  me,  because  J  was  never 
half  so  good  or  religious  as  she, — and  yet  I  never 
saw  the  infants.  Here  John  expanded  all  his  eye- 
brows, and  tried  to  look  courageous.  Then  I  told 
how  good  she  was  to  all  her  grandchildren,  having 
us  to  the  great  house  in  the  holidays,  where  I  in 
particular  used  to  spend  many  hours  by  myself,  in 
gazing  upon  the  old  busts  of  the  tw^elve  Caesars, 
that  had  besn  Emperors  of  Rome,  till  the  old 
marble  heads  would  seem  to  live  again,  or  I  to  be 
turned  into  marble  with  them  ;  how  I  never  could 
be  tired  with  roaming  about  that  huge  mansion, 
with  its  vast  empty  rooms,  with  their  worn-out 
hangings,  fluttering  tapestry,  and  carved  oaken 
panels,  with  the  gilding  almost  rubbed  out, — some- 
times in  the  spacious  old-fashioned  gardens,  which 
I  had  almost  to  myself,  unless  when  now  and  then 
a  solitary  gardening  man  would  cross  me, — and 
how  the  nectarines  and  peaches  hung  upon  the 
walls,  without  my  ever  offering  to  pluck  them, 
because  they  were  forbidden  fruit,  unless  now  and 
then, — and  because  I  had  more  pleasure  in  stroll- 
ing about  among  the  old  melancholy-looking  yew- 
trees,  or  the  firs,  and  picking  up  the  red  berries, 
and  the  fir-apples,  which  were  good  for  nothing 
but  to  look  at, — or  in  lying  about  upon  the  fresh 
grass  with  all  the  fine  garden  smells  around  me, 
— or  basking  in  the  orangery,  till  I  could  almost 


Bream5Gbil&ren ;  B  tKevenj.  183 

fancy  myself  ripening  too  along  with  the  oranges 
and  the  limes  in  that  grateful  warmth, — or  in 
watching  the  dace  that  darted  to  and  fro  in  the 
fish-pond,  at  the  bottom  of  the  garden,  with  here 
and  there  a  great  sulky  pike  hanging  midway 
down  the  water  in  silent  state,  as  if  it  mocked 
at  their  impertinent  friskings  ; — I  had  more  pleas- 
ure in  these  busy-idle  diversions  than  in  all  the 
sweet  flavors  of  peaches,  nectarines,  oranges, 
and  such-like  common  baits  of  children.  Here 
John  slyly  deposited  back  upon  the  plate  a 
bunch  of  grapes,  which,  not  unobserved  by 
Alice,  he  had  meditated  dividing  with  her, 
and  both  seemed  willing  to  relinquish  them 
for  the  present  as  irrelevant.  Then,  in  a  some- 
what more  heightened  tone,  I  told  how,  though 
their  great-grandmother  Field  loved  all  her  grand- 
children, yet  in  an  especial  manner  she  might  be 
said  to  love  their  uncle,  John  L, ,  because  he  was 
so  handsome  and  spirited  a  youth,  and  a  king  to 
the  rest  of  us  ;  and,  instead  of  moping  about  in 
solitary  corners,  like  some  of  us,  he  would  mount 
the  most  mettlesome  horse  he  could  get,  when 
but  an  imp  no  bigger  than  themselves,  and  make 
it  carry  him  half  over  the  county  in  a  morning, 
and  join  the  hunters  when  there  were  any  out, — 
and  yet  he  loved  the  old  great  house  and  gardens 
too,  but  had  too  much  spirit  to  be  always  pent 
up  within  their  boundaries, — and  how  their  uncle 
grew  up  to  man's  estate  as  brave  as  he  was  hand- 
some, to  the  admiration  of  every  body,  but  of 
their  great-grandmother  Field  most  especially  ; 
and  how  he  used  to  carry  me  upon  his  back  when 
I  was  a  lame-footed  boy — for  he  was  a  good  bit 
older  than  me — many  a  mile  when  I  could  not 


1 84  B66aS5  Of  JElta, 

walk  for  pain  ;  and  how  in  after-life  he  became 
lame-footed  too,  and  I  did  not  always  (I  fear) 
make  allowances  enough  for  him  when  he  was 
impatient  and  in  pain,  nor  remember  sufficiently 
how  considerate  he  had  been  to  me  when  I  was 
lame-footed  ;  and  how,  when  he  died,  though  he 
had  not  been  dead  an  hour,  it  seemed  as  if  he  had 
died  a  great  while  ago,  such  a  distance  there  is 
betwixt  life  and  death  ;  and  how  J  bore  his  death, 
as  I  thought,  pretty  well  at  first,  but  afterwards 
it  haunted  and  haunted  me  ;  and  though  I  did  not 
cry  or  take  it  to  heart  as  some  do,  and  as  I  think 
he  would  have  done  if  I  had  died,  yet  I  missed 
him  all  day  long,  and  knew  not  till  then  how 
much  1  had  loved  him.  I  missed  his  kindness, 
and  I  missed  his  crossness,  and  wished  him  to  be 
alive  again,  to  be  quarrelling  with  him  (for  we 
quarrelled  sometimes.)  rather  than  not  have  him 
again,  and  was  uneasy  without  him,  as  he  their 
poor  uncle  must  have  been  when  the  doctor  took 
off  his  limb.  Here  the  children  fell  a-crying,  and 
asked  if  their  little  mourning  which  they  had  on 
was  not  for  Uncle  John,  and  they  looked  up, 
and  prayed  me  not  to  go  on  about  their  uncle, 
but  to  tell  them  some  stories  about  their  pretty 
dead  mother.  Then  I  told  how,  for  seven  long 
years,  in  hope  sometimes,  sometimes  in  despair, 
yet  persisting  ever,  I  courted  the  fair  Alice 
W n  ;  and,  as  much  as  children  could  under- 
stand, I  explained  to  them  what  coyness,  and 
difficulty,  and  denial  meant  in  maidens, — when 
suddenly,  turning  to  Alice,  the  soul  of  the  first 
Alice  looked  out  at  her  eyes  with  such  a  reality  of 
representment,  that  I  became  in  doubt  which  of 
them  stood  there  before  me,  or  whose  that  bright 


BreamsCbUDren ;  B  IRerers.  185 

hair  was  ;  and  while  I  stood  gazing,  both  the 
children  gradually  grew  fainter  to  my  view,  reced- 
ing, and  still  receding,  till  nothing  at  last  but  two 
mournful  features  were  seen  in  the  uttermost  dis- 
tance, which,  without  speech,  strangely  impressed 
upon  me  the  effects  of  speech  :  ''We  are  not  of 
Alice,  nor  of  thee,  nor  are  we  children  at  all.  The 
children  of  Alice  call  Bartrum  father.  We  are 
nothing  ;  less  than  nothing,  and  dreams.  We  are 
only  what  might  have  been,  and  must  wait  upon 
the  tedious  shores  of  the  Lethe  millions  of  ages  be- 
fore we  have  existence,  and  a  name"  ; — and  im- 
mediately awaking,  I  found  myself  quietly  seated 
in  my  bachelor  arm-chair,  where  I  had  fallen 
asleep,  with  the  faithful  Bridget  unchanged  by 
my  side, — but  John  L.  (or  James  Elia)  was  gone 
forever. 


DISTANT  CORRESPONDENTS. 


IN    A    LETTER    TO    B,    F, ,    ESQ.,     AT    SYDNEY,     NEW    SOUTH 
WALES. 

My  DEAR  F.  : — When  I  think  how  welcome  the 
sight  of  a  letter  from  the  world  where  you  were 
born  must  be  to  you  in  that  strange  one  to  which 
you  have  been  transplanted,  I  feel  some  compunc- 
tious visitings  at  my  long  silence.  But,  indeed,  it 
is  no  easy  effort  to  set  about  a  correspondence  at 
our  distance.  The  weary  world  of  waters  between 
us  oppresses  the  imagination.  It  is  difficult  to  con- 
ceive how  a  scrawl  of  mine  should  ever  stretch 
across  it.  It  is  a  sort  of  presumption  to  expect  that 
one's  thoughts  should  live  so  far.  It  is  like  writ- 
ing for  posterity  ;  and  reminds  me  of  one  of  Mrs. 
Rowe's  superscriptions,  "  Alcander  to  Strephon 
in  the  Shades."  Cowley  s  Post-Angel  is  no  more 
than  would  be  expedient  in  such  an  intercourse. 
One  drops  a  packet  at  Lombard  Street,  and  in 
twenty-four  hours  a  friend  in  Cumberland  gets  it  as 
fresh  as  if  it  came  in  ice.  It  is  only  like  whispering 
through  a  long  trumpet.  But  suppose  a  tube  let 
down  from  the  moon,  with  yourself  at  one  end, 
and  the  man  at  the  other  ;  it  would  be  some  balk 
to  the  spirit  of  conversation,  if  you  knew  the  dia- 
logue exchanged  with  that  interesting  theosophist 
186 


2>i0tant  GorresponDents.  187 

would  take  two  or  three  revolutions  of  a  higher 
luminary  in  its  passage.  Yet  for  aught  I  know, 
you  may  be  some  parasangs  nigher  that  primitive 
idea — Plato's  man — than  we  in  England  here  have 
the  honor  to  reckon  ourselves. 

Epistolary  matter  usually  compriseth  three 
topics  :  news,  sentiment,  and  puns.  In  the  latter  I 
include  all  non-serious  subjects  ;  or  subjects  serious 
in  themselves,  but  treated  after  my  fashion,  non- 
seriously.  And  first,  for  news.  In  them  the  most 
desirable  circumstance,  I  suppose,  is  that  theyshall 
be  true.  But  what  security  can  I  have  that  what  I 
now  send  you  for  truth  shall  not,  before  you  get  it, 
unaccountably  turn  into  a  lie  ?  P^or  instance,  our 
mutual  friend  P.  is  at  this  present  writing — mj^  Avw 
— in  good  health,  and  enjoys  a  fair  share  of 
worldly  reputation.  You  are  glad  to  hear  it. 
This  is  natural  and  friendly.  But  at  this  present 
Teadiug—zyour  Now — he  may  possibly  be  in  the 
Bench,  or  going  to  be  hanged,  which  in  reason 
ought  to  abate  something  of  your  transport  (i.  e., 
at  hearing  he  was  well,  etc.),  or  at  least  consider- 
ably to  modify  it.  I  am  going  to  the  play  this 
evening,  to  have  a  laugh  with  Munden.  You 
have  no  theatre,  I  think  you  told  me,  in  your  land 

of  d d  realities.     You   naturally  lick  your  lips 

and  envy  me  my  felicity.  Think  but  a  moment, 
and  you  will  correct  the  hateful  emotion.  Why 
it  is  Sunday  morning  with  you,  and  1823.  This 
confusion  of  tenses,  this  grand  solecism  of  /wo 
presents,  is  in  a  degree  common  to  all  postage. 
But  if  I  sent  you  word  to  Bath  or  Devizes,  that  I 
was  expecting  the  aforesaid  treat  this  evening, 
though  at  the  moment  you  received  the  intelli- 
gence my  full  feast  of  fun   would  be  over,   yet 


1 88  Bs6ai53  ol  }£l(a. 

there  would  be  for  a  day  or  two  after,  as  yoa 
would  well  know,  a  smack,  a  relish  left  upon  my 
mental  palate,  which  would  give  rational  encour- 
agement for  you  to  foster,  a  portion,  at  least,  of 
the  disagreeable  p^ission  which  it  was  in  part  my  ■ 
intention  to  produce.  But  ten  months  hence,  your 
envy  or  your  sympathy  would  be  as  useless  as  a 
passion  spent  upon  the  dead.  Not  only  does  truth, 
in  these  long  intervals  unessence  herself,  but  (what 
is  harder)  one  cannot  venture  a  crude  fiction,  for 
the  fear  that  it  may  ripen  into  a  truth  upon  the 
voyage.  What  a  wild  improbable  banter  I  put 
upon  you  some  three  years  since — of  Will  Weath- 
erall  having  married  a  servant-maid  !  I  remember 
gravely  consulting  you  how  we  were  to  receive 
her — for  Will's  wife  was  in  no  case  to  be  rejected  ; 
and  your  no  less  serious  replication  in  the  matter  ; 
how  tenderly  you  advised  an  abstemious  intro- 
duction of  literary  topics  before  the  lady,  with  a 
caution  not  to  be  too  forward  in  bringing  on  the 
carpet  matters  more  within  the  sphere  of  her  intel- 
ligence ;  your  deliberate  judgment  or  rather  wise 
suspension  of  sentence,  how  far  jacks,  and  spits, 
and  mops  could,  with  propriety,  be  introduced 
as  subjects  ;  whether  the  conscious  avoiding  of 
all  such  matters  in  discourse  would  not  have  a 
worse  look  than  the  taking  of  them  casually  in 
our  way  ;  in  what  manner  we  should  carry  our- 
selves to  our  maid  Becky,  ]\Irs.  William  Weather- 
all  being  by  ;  whether  we  should  show  more  deli- 
cacy, and  a  truer  sense  of  respect  for  Wills  wife, 
by  treating  Becky  with  our  customary  chiding 
before  her,  or  by  an  unusual  deferential  civility 
paid  to  Becky  as  to  a  person  of  great  worth,  but 
thrown  by  the  caprice  of  fate   into  a  humble  sta- 


2>f0tant  Corregpon&ent6,  i8^ 

tion.  There  were  difficulties,  I  remember,  on  both 
sides,  which  you  did  me  the  favor  to  state  with  the 
precision  of  a  lawyer,  united  to  the  tenderness 
of  a  friend.  I  laughed  in  my  sleeve  at  your 
solemn  pleadings,  when  lo  !  while  I  was  valuing- 
myself  upon  this  flam  put  upon  you  in  New 
South  Wales,  the  devil  in  England,  jealous  pos- 
sibly of  any  lie-children  not  his  own,  or  working 
after  my  copy,  has  actually  instigated  our  friend 
(not  three  days  since)  to  the  commission  of  a  mat- 
rimony, which  I  had  only  conjured  up  for  your 
diversion.  William  Weatherall  has  married  Mrs. 
Cotterel's  maid.  But  to  take  it  in  its  truest  sense, 
you  will  see,  my  dear  F. ,  that  news  from  me 
must  become  history  to  you  ;  which  I  neither 
profess  to  write  nor  indeed  care  much  for  reading. 
No  person,  under  a  diviner,  can  with  any  pros- 
pect of  veracity,  conduct  a  correspondence  at  such 
an  arm's  length.  Two  prophets,  indeed,  might 
thus  interchange  intelligence  with  effect ;  the 
epoch  of  the  writer  (Habakkuk)  falling  in  with 
the  true  present  time  of  the  receiver  (Daniel)  ;  but 
then  we  are  no  prophets. 

Then  as  to  sentiment.  It  fares  little  better 
with  that.  This  kind  of  dish,  above  all,  requires 
to  be  served  up  hot ;  or  sent  off  in  water-plates, 
that  your  friend  may  have  it  almost  as  warm  as 
yourself.  If  it  have  time  to  cool,  it  is  the  most 
tasteless  of  all  cold  meats.  I  have  often  smiled 
at  a  conceit  of  the  late  Lord  C.  It  seems  that, 
travelling  somewhere  about  Geneva,  he  came  to 
some  pretty  green  spot,  or  nook,  where  a  willow, 
or  something,  hung  so  fantastically  and  invitingly 
over  a  stream — was  it  ? — or  a  rock  ? — no  matter, 
—but  the  stillness  and  the  repose,  after  a  weary 


190  Sfisass  ot  :ei(a. 

journey  't  is  likely,  in  a  languid  moment  of  his 
Lordship's  hot,  restless  life,  so  took  his  fancy  that 
he  could  imagine  no  place  so  proper,  in  the  event 
of  his  death,  to  lay  his  bones  in.  This  was  all 
very  natural  and  excusable  as  a  sentiment,  and 
shows  his  character  in  a  very  pleasing  light.  But 
when  from  a  passing  sentiment  it  came  to  be  an 
act ;  and  when,  by  a  positive  testamentary  dis- 
posal, his  remains  were  actually  carried  all  that 
way  from  England  ;  who  was  there,  some  des- 
perate sentimentalists  excepted,  that  did  not  ask 
the  question.  Why  could  not  his  Lordship  have 
found  a  spot  as  solitary,  a  nook  as  romantic,  a 
tree  as  green  and  pendent,  with  a  stream  as  em- 
blematic to  his  purpose,  in  vSurrey,  in  Dorset,  or 
in  Devon  .?  Conceive  the  sentiment  boarded  up, 
freighted,  entered  at  the  Custom-House  (startling 
the  tide-waiters  with  the  novelty),  hoisted  into  a 
ship.  Conceive  it  pawed  about  and  handled  be- 
tween the  rude  jests  of  tarpaulin  ruffians, — a 
thing  of  its  delicate  texture, — the  salt  bilge  wet- 
ting it  till  it  became  as  vapid  as  a  damaged  lus- 
tring. Suppose  it  in  material  danger  (mariners 
have  some  superstition  about  sentiments)  of  be- 
ing tossed  over  in  a  fresh  gale  to  some  propitia- 
tory shark  (spirit  of  Saint  Gothard,  save  us  from  a 
quietus  so  foreign  to  the  deviser's  purpose  !)  but 
it  has  happily  evaded  a  fishy  consummation. 
Trace  it  then  to  its  lucky  landing — at  Lyons  shall 
we  say.' — I  have  not  the  map  before  me — ^jostled 
upon  four  mens  shoulders — baiting  at  this  town 
— stopping  to  refresh  at  t"  other  village — waiting 
a  passport  here,  a  license  there  ;  the  sanction  of 
the  magistracy  in  this  district,  the  concurrence  of 
the  ecclesiastics  in  that  canton  ;    till  at  length  it 


Distant  Correspondents.  191 

arrives  at  its  destination,  tired  out  and  jaded, 
from  a  brisk  sentiment,  into  a  feature  of  silly 
pride  or  tawdry,  senseless  affectation.  How  few 
sentiments,  my  dear  F. ,  I  am  afraid  we  can  set 
down,  in  the  sailor's  phrase,  as  quite  sea-worthy. 
Lastly,  as  to  the  agreeable  levities,  which, 
though  contemptible  in  bulk,  are  the  twinkling 
corpuscula  which  should  irradiate  a  right  friendly 
epistle, — yoi\r  puns  and  small  jests  are,  I  appre- 
hend, extremely  circumscribed  in  their  sphere  of 
action.  They  are  so  far  from  a  capacity  of  being 
packed  up  and  sent  beyond  sea,  they  will  scarce 
endure  to  be  transported  by  hand  from  this  room 
to  the  next.  Their  vigor  is  as  the  instant  of  their 
birth.  Their  nutriment  for  their  brief  existence  is 
the  intellectual  atmosphere  of  the  bystanders  ;  or 
this  last  is  the  fine  slime  of  Nilus — the  melior  lutus 
— whose  maternal  recipiency  is  as  necessary  as 
the  sol  pater  to  their  equivocal  generation.  A  pun 
hath  a  hearty  kind  of  present  ear-kissing  smack 
with  it  ;  you  can  no  more  transmit  it  in  its  pris- 
tine flavor,  than  you  can  send  a  kiss.  Have  you 
not  tried  in  some  instances  to  palm  off  a  yester- 
day's pun  upon  a  gentleman,  and  has  it  answered } 
Not  but  it  was  new  to  his  hearing,  but  it  did  not 
seem  to  come  new  from  you.  It  did  not  hitch  in. 
It  was  like  picking  up  at  a  village  ale-house  a 
two-days'  old  newspaper.  You  have  not  seen 
it  before,  but  you  resent  the  stale  thing  as  an 
affront.  This  sort  of  merchandise  above  all  re- 
quires a  quick  return.  A  pun,  and  its  recognitory 
laugh,  must  be  coinstantaneous.  The  one  is 
the  brisk  lightning,  the  other  the  fierce  thunder. 
A  moment's  interval,  and  the  link  is  snapped.  A 
pun   is  reflected  from  a  friend's  face  as  from  a 


192  Essai^s  ot  Elta. 

mirror.  Who  would  consult  his  sweet  visnomy, 
if  the  polished  surface  were  two  or  three  minutes 
(not  to  speak  of  twelve  months,  my  dear  F. )  in 
giving  back  its  copy  ? 

I  cannot  image  to  myself  whereabout  you  are. 
When  I  try  to  fix  it,  Peter  Wilkins's  island  comes 
across  me.  Sometimes  you  seem  to  be  in  the 
Hades  of  Thieves.  I  see  Diogenes  prying  among 
you  with  his  perpetual  fruitless  lantern.  What 
must  you  be  willing  by  this  time  to  give  for  the 
sight  of  an  honest  man  !  You  must  almost  have 
forgotten  how  we  look.  And  tell  me,  what  your 
Sydneyites  do  ?  are  they  th  .  .  v  .  ng  all  day 
long  .?  Merciful  heaven  !  what  property  can  stand 
against  such  depredation  !  The  kangaroos — your 
Aborigines — do  they  keep  their  primitive  sim- 
plicity un-Europe  tainted,  with  those  little  short 
fore-puds,  looking  like  a  lesson  framed  by  nature 
to  the  pickpocket  !  IMarry,  for  diving  into  fobs  they 
are  rather  lamely  provided,  a  priori/  but  if  the  hue- 
and-cry  were  once  up,  they  would  show  us  as  fair 
a  pair  of  hind-shifters  as  the  expertest  locomotor 
in  the  colony.  We  hear  the  most  improbable 
tales  at  this  distance.  Pray,  is  it  true  that  the 
young  Spartans  among  you  are  born  with  six 
fingers,  which  spoils  their  scanning  .?  It  must 
look  very  odd  ;  but  use  reconciles.  For  their 
scansion,  it  is  less  to  be  regretted,  for  if  they  take 
it  into  their  heads  to  be  poets,  it  is  odds  but  they 
turn  out,  the  greater  part  of  them,  vile  plagiarists. 
Is  there  much  difference  to  see,  too,  between  the 
son  of  a  th  .  .  f,  and  the  grandson  .?  or  where  does 
the  taint  stop  }  Do  you  bleach  in  three  or  in  four 
generations  .''  I  have  many  questions  to  put,  but 
ten  Delphic  voyages    can    be   made  in  a   shorter 


Distant  CorresponDents.  193 

time  than  it  will  take  to  satisfy  my  scruples.  Do 
you  grow  your  own  hemp?  What  is  your  staple 
trade, — exclusive  of  the  national  profession,  I 
mean  ?  Your  locksmiths,  I  take  it,  are  some  of 
your  great  capitalists. 

I  am  insensibly  chatting  to  you  as  familiarly  as 
when  we  used  to  exchange  good-m.orrows  out  of 
our  old  contiguous  windows,  in  pump-famed  Hare 
Court  in  the  Temple.  Why  did  you  ever  leave  that 
quiet  corner  ?  Why  did  I  ? — with  its  complement 
of  four  poor  elms,  from  whose  smoke-dyed  barks, 
the  theme  of  jesting  ruralists,  I  picked  my  first  lady- 
birds !  My  heart  is  as  dry  as  that  spring  some- 
times proves  in  a  thirsty  August,  when  I  revert  to 
the  space  that  is  between  us  ;  a  length  of  passage 
enough  to  render  obsolete  the  phrases  of  our 
English  letters  before  they  can  reach  you.  But 
while  I  talk,  I  think  you  hear  me, — thoughts  dally- 
ing with  vain  surmise, — 

Aye  me  !  while  these  the  seas  and  soundmg  shores 
Hold  far  away. 

Come  back,  before  I  am  grown  into  a  very  old 
man,  so  as  you  shall  hardly  know  me.  Come, 
before  Bridget  walks  on  crutches.  Girls  whom 
you  left  children  have  become  sage  matrons 
while  you  are  tarrying  there.     The  blooming  Miss 

W r  (you  remember  Sally  W r)  called  upon 

us  yesterday,  an  aged  crone.  Folks,  whom  you 
knew,  die  off  every  year.  Formerly,  I  thought 
that  death  was  wearing  out, — I  stood  ramparted 
about  so  with  many  healthy  friends.  The  depart- 
ure of  J.  W.,  two  springs  back,  corrected  my 
delusion.  Since  then  the  old  divorcer  has  been 
busy.  If  ^ou  do  not  make  haste  to  return  there 
will  be  littfe  left  to  greet  you,  of  me,  or  mine. 
13 


THE  PRAISE  OF   CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS. 


I  LIKE  to  meet  a  sweep — understand  me — not 
a  grown  sweeper, — old  chimney-sweepers  are 
by  no  means  attractive, — but  one  of  those  tender 
novices,  blooming  through  their  first  nigritude, 
the  maternal  washings  not  quite  effaced  from  the 
cheek, — such  as  come  forth  with  the  dawn,  or 
somewhat  earlier,  with  their  little  professional 
notes  sounding  like  the  peep,  peep,  of  a  young 
sparrow  ;  or  liker  to  the  matin  lark  should  I  pro- 
nounce them,  in  their  aerial  ascents  not  seldom 
anticipating  the  sunrise  ? 

I  have  a  kindly  yearning  towards  these  dim 
specks — poor  blots — innocent  blacknesses. 

I  reverence  these  young  Africans  of  our  own 
growth — these  almost  clergy  imps,  who  sport 
their  cloth  without  assumption  ;  and  from  their 
little  pulpits  (the  tops  of  chimneys),  in  the  nip- 
ping air  of  a  December  morning,  preach  a  lesson 
of  patience  to  mankind. 

When  a  child,  what  a  mysterious  pleasure  it 
was  to  witness  their  operation  !  to  see  a  chit  no 
bigger  than  one's  self,  enter,  one  knew  not  by 
what  process,  into  what  SQQnied  the /auces  Averni, 
— to  pursue  him  in  imagination,  as  he  went  sound- 
ing on  through  so  many  dark  stifling  caverns, 
hgrrid  shades  ! — to  shudder  with  the  idea  that 
194 


XLbc  IPraiec  ot  Cbimne^sSweepers.        195 

"now,  surely,  he  must  be  lost  forever!  " — to  re- 
vive at  hearing  his  feeble  shout  of  discovered  de- 
light,— and  then  (O  fulness  of  delight !)  running 
out  of  doors,  to  come  just  in  time  to  see  the  sable 
phenomenon  emerge  in  safety,  the  brandished 
weapon  of  his  art  victorious  like  some  flag  waved 
over  a  conquered  citadel !  I  seem  to  remember 
having  been  told  that  a  bad  sweep  was  once  left 
in  a  stack  with  his  brush,  to  indicate  which  way 
the  wind  blew.  It  was  an  awful  spectacle,  cer- 
ta.inly  ;  not  much  unlike  the  old  stage  direction 
in  Macbeth,  where  the  "Apparition  of  a  child 
crowned,  with  a  tree  in  his  hand,  rises." 

Reader,  if  thou  meetest  one  of  these  small 
gentry  in  thy  early  rambles,  it  is  good  to  give 
him  a  penny.  It  is  better  to  give  him  twopence. 
If  it  be  starving  weather,  and  to  the  proper 
troubles  of  his  hard  occupation,  a  pair  of  kibed 
heels  (no  unusual  accompaniment)  be  super- 
added, the  demand  on  thy  humanity  will  surely 
rise  to  a  tester. 

There  is  a  composition,  the  groundwork  of  which 
I  have  understood  to  be  the  sweet  wood  yclept 
sassafras.  This  wood,  boiled  down  to  a  kind  of 
tea,  and  tempered  with  an  infusion  of  milk  and 
sugar,  hath  to  some  tastes  a  delicacy  beyond  the 
China  luxury.  I  know  not  how  thy  palate  may 
relish  it  ;  for  myself,  with  every  deference  to  the 
judicious  Mr.  Read,  who  hath  time  out  of  mind 
kept  open  a  shop  (the  only  one  he  avers  in 
London)  for  the  vending  of  this  "  wholesome  and 
pleasant  beverage,"  on  the  south  side  of  Fleet 
Street,  as  thou  approachest  Bridge  Street — /he  on/y 
Salopian  house — I  have  never  ventured  to  dip  my 
own  particular  lip  in  a  basin  of  his  commended  in- 


196  l£66a^S  ct  BUa. 

gredients — a  cautious  premonition  to  the  olfacto- 
ries constantly  whispering  tome,  that  my  stomach 
must  infallibly,  with  all  due  courtesy,  decline  it. 
Yet  I  have  seen  palates,  otherwise  not  uninstructed 
in  dietetical  elegancies,  sup  it  up  with  avidity. 

I  know  not  by  what  particular  conformation 
of  the  organ  it  happens,  but  I  have  always  found 
that  this  composition  is  surprisingly  gratifying  to 
the  palate  of  a  young  chimney-sweeper, — whether 
the  oily  particles  (sassafras  is  slightly  oleaginous) 
do  attenuate  and  soften  the  fuliginous  concretions, 
which  are  sometimes  found  (in  dissections)  to 
adhere  to  the  roof  of  the  mouth  in  these  unfledged 
practitioners  ;  or  whether  Nature,  sensible  that 
she  had  mingled  too  much  of  bitter  wood  in  the 
lot  of  these  raw  victims,'  caused  to  grow  out  of 
the  earth  her  sassafras  for  a  sweet  lenitive ; 
— but  so  it  is,  that  no  possible  taste  or  odor  to  the 
senses  of  a  young  chimney-sweeper  can  convey 
a  delicate  excitement  comparable  to  this  mixture. 
Being  penniless,  they  will  yet  hang  their  black 
heads  over  the  ascending  steam,  to  gratify  one 
sense  if  possible,  seemingly  no  less  pleased  than 
those  domestic  animals — cats — when  they  purr 
over  a  new-found  sprig  of  valerian.  There  is 
something  more  in  these  sympathies  than  phi- 
losophy can  inculcate. 

Now  albeit  Mr.  Read  boasteth,  not  without 
reason,  that  this  is  the  on/y  Salopian  house;  yet 
be  it  known  to  thee,  reader, — if  thou  art  one  who 
keepest  what  are  called  good  hours,  thou  art 
happily  ignorant  of  the  fact — he  hath  a  race  of 
industrious  imitators,  who  from  stalls,  and  under 
open  sky,  dispense  the  same  savory  mess  to 
humbler  customers,  at  that  dead  time  of  the  dawn, 


Zbc  praise  ot  Cbtmnei2*Svveeper0.        197 

when  (as  extremes  meet)  the  rake,  reeling  home 
from  his  midnight  cups,  and  the  hard-handed 
artisan  leaving  his  bed  to  resume  the  premature 
labors  of  the  day,  jostle,  not  unfrequently  to  the 
manifest  disconcerting  of  the  former,  for  the 
honors  of  the  pavement.  It  is  the  time  when,  in 
summer,  between  the  expired  and  the  not  yet 
relumined  kitchen-fires,  the  kennels  of  our  fair 
metropolis  give  forth  their  least  satisfactory  odors. 
The  rake,  who  wisheth  to  dissipate  his  o'er-night 
vapors  in  grateful  coffee,  curses  the  ungenial 
fume  as  he  passeth  ;  but  the  artisan  stops  to  taste, 
and  blesses  the  fragrant  breakfast. 

This  is  saloop — the  precocious  herb-woman's 
darling, — the  delight  of  the  early  gardener,  who 
transports  his  smoking  cabbages  by  break  of  day 
from  Hammersmith  to  Covent  Garden  s  famed 
piazzas, — the  delight,  and  oh  !  I  fear,  too  often 
the  envy,  of  the  unpennied  sweep.  Him  shouldst 
thou  haply  encounter,  with  his  dim  visage  pen- 
dent over  the  grateful  steam,  regale  him  with  a 
sumptuous  basin  (it  will  cost  thee  but  three  half- 
pennies) and  a  slice  of  delicate  bread  and  butter 
(an  added  half-penny) — so  may  thy  culinary  fires, 
eased  of  the  o'er-charged  secretions  from  thy  worse- 
placed  hospitalities,  curl  up  a  lighter  volume  to 
the  welkin, — so  may  the  descending  soot  never 
taint  thy  costly  well-ingredienced  soups, — nor  the 
odious  cry,  quick-reaching  from  street  to  street, 
of  the  fired  chimney,  invite  the  rattling  engines 
from  adjacent  parishes,  to  disturb  for  a  casual 
scintillation  thy  peace  and  pocket  ! 

I  am  by  nature  extremely  susceptible  of  street 
affronts  ;  the  jeers  and  taunts  of  the  populace ; 
the    low-bred    triumph    they    display   over    the 


198  JEssa^s  ot  Blia, 

casual  trip,  or  splashed  stocking,  of  a  gentle- 
man. Yet  can  I  endure  the  jocularity  of  a 
young  sweep  with  something  more  than  forgive- 
ness. In  the  last  w^inter  but  one,  pacing  along 
Cheapside  with  my  accustomed  precipitation 
when  I  walked  westward,  a  treacherous  slide 
brought  me  upon  my  back  in  an  instant.  I 
scrambled  up  with  pain  and  shame  enough, — yet 
outwardly  trying  to  face  it  down,  as  if  nothing 
had  happened, — when  the  roguish  grin  of  one  of 
these  young  wits  encountered  me.  There  he 
stood,  pointing  me  out  with  his  dusky  fingerto  the 
mob,  and  to  a  poor  woman  (I  suppose  his  mother) 
in  particular,  till  the  tears  for  the  exquisiteness  of 
the  fun  (so  he  thought  it)  worked  themselves  out 
at  the  corners  of  his  poor  red  eyes,  red  from  many 
a  previous  weeping,  and  soot-inflamed,  yet  twink- 
ling through  all  with  such  a  joy,  snatched  out  of 
desolation,  that  Hogarth — but  Hogarth  has  got 
him  already  (how  could  he  miss  him  ?)  in  the 
March  to  Finchley,  grinning  at  the  pieman, — there 
he  stood,  as  he  stands  in  the  picture,  irremovable, 
as  if  the  jest  was  to  last  forever, — with  such  a 
maximum  of  glee,  and  minimum  of  mischief,  in 
his  mirth — for  the  grin  of  a  genuine  sweep  hath 
absolutely  no  malice  in  it — that  I  could  have  been 
content,  if  the  honor  of  a  gentleman  might  endure 
it,  to  have  remained  his  butt  and  his  mockery  till 
midnight. 

I  am  by  theory  obdurate  to  the  seductiveness 
of  what  are  called  a  fine  set  of  teeth.  Every  pair 
of  rosy  lips  (the  ladies  must  pardon  me)  is  a 
casket  presumably  holding  such  jewels  ;  but, 
methinks,  they  should  take  leave  to  "  air'"'  them 
as  frugally   as   possible.     The  fine   lady,  or  fine 


Zbc  ipralse  ot  Cblmnci^sSweepcra.        199 

gentleman,  who  show  me  their  teeth,  show  me 
bones.  Yet  must  I  confess,  that  from  the  mouth 
of  a  true  sweep  a  display  (even  to  ostentation)  of 
those  white  and  shining  ossifications,  strikes  me 
as  an  agreeable  anomaly  in  manners,  and  an 
allowable  piece  of  foppery.     It  is,  as  when 

A  sable  cloud 
Turns  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night. 

It  is  like  some  remnant  of  gentry  not  quite  ex- 
tinct ;  a  badge  of  better  days  ;  a  hint  of  nobility — 
and,  doubtless,  under  the  obscuring  darkness  and 
double  night  of  their  forlorn  disguisement,  often- 
times lurketh  good  blood,  and  gentle  conditions, 
derived  from  lost  ancestry,  and  a  lapsed  pedigree. 
The  premature  apprenticements  of  these  tender 
victims  give  but  too  much  encouragement,  I  fear, 
to  clandestine  and  almost  infantile  abductions  ; 
the  seeds  of  civility  and  true  courtesy,  so  often 
discernible  in  these  young  grafts  (not  otherwise 
to  be  accounted  for),  plainly  hint  at  some  forced 
adoptions  ;  many  noble  Rachels,  mourning  for 
their  children  even  in  our  days,  countenance  the 
fact  ;  the  tales  of  fairy-spiriting  may  shadow  a 
lamentable  verity,  and  the  recovery  of  the  young 
Montagu  be  but  a  solitary  instance  of  good  fort- 
une out  of  many  irreparable  and  hopeless  defilia- 
tions. 

In  one  of  the  state-beds  at  Arundel  Castle,  a  few 
years  since — under  a  ducal  canopy — (that  seat  of 
the  Howards  is  an  object  of  curiosity  to  visitors, 
chiefly  for  its  beds,  in  which  the  late  duke  was 
especially  a  connoisseur) — encircled  with  curtains 
of  delicatest   crimson,   with  starry  coronets   in- 


200  jB6stL>Q6  Of  :i6Ua. 

woven — folded  between  a  pair  of  sheets  whiter 
and  softer  than  the  lap  where  Venus  lulled 
Ascanius — was  discovered  by  chance,  after  all 
methods  of  search  had  failed,  at  noonday,  fast 
asleep,  a  lost  chimney-sweeper.  The  little  creat- 
ure, having  somehow  confounded  his  passage 
among  the  intricacies  of  those  lordly  chimneys,  by 
some  unknown  aperture  had  alighted  upon  this 
magnificent  chamber;  and,  tired  with  his  tedious 
explorations,  was  unable  to  resist  the  delicious 
invitement  to  repose,  which  he  there  saw  ex- 
hibited ;  so  creeping  between  the  sheets  very 
quietly,  laid  his  black  head  upon  the  pillow,  and 
slept  like  a  young  Howard. 

Such  is  the  account  given  to  the  visitors  at  the 
Castle.  But  I  cannot  help  seeming  to  perceive  a 
confirmation  of  what  I  have  just  hinted  at  in  this 
story.  A  high  instinct  was  at  work  in  the  case, 
or  I  am  mistaken.  Is  it  probable  that  a  poor  child 
of  that  description,  with  whatever  weariness  he 
might  be  visited,  would  have  ventured,  under  such 
a  penalty  as  he  would  be  taught  to  expect,  to  un- 
cover the  sheets  of  a  duke's  bed,  and  deliberately 
to  lay  himself  down  between  them,  when  the  rug, 
or  the  carpet,  presented  an  obvious  couch,  still 
far  above  his  pretensions — is  this  probable,  I 
would  ask,  if  the  great  power  of  nature,  which 
I  contend  for,  had  not  been  manifested  within 
him,  prompting  to  the  adventure  ?  Doubtless  this 
young  nobleman  (for  such  my  mind  misgives  me 
that  he  must  be)  was  allured  by  some  memory, 
not  amounting  to  full  consciousness,  of  his  condi- 
tion in  infancy,  when  he  was  used  to  be  lapped 
by  his  mother,  or  his  nurse,  in  just  such  sheets  as 
he  there  found,  into  which  he  was  now  but  creep- 


Zbc  iPraiae  ot  Cbimnes^Svveepers.        201 

ingback  as  into  his  proper  Incunabula,  and  resting- 
place.  By  no  other  theory  than  by  this  sentiment 
of  a  preexistent  state  (as  I  may  call  it)  can  I 
explain  a  deed  so  venturous,  and,  indeed,  upon 
any  other  system  so  indecorous,  in  this  tender, 
but  unseasonable,  sleeper. 

My  pleasant  friend  Jem  White  was  so  impressed 
by  a  belief  of  metamorphoses  like  this  frequently 
taking  place,  that  in  some  sort  to  reverse  the 
wrongs  of  fortune  in  these  poor  changelings,  he 
instituted  an  annual  feast  of  chimney-sweepers, 
at  which  it  was  his  pleasure  to  officiate  as  host 
and  waiter.  It  was  a  solemn  supper  held  in 
Smithfield,  upon  the  yearly  return  of  the  fair  of 
St.  Bartholomew.  Cards  were  issued  a  week 
before  to  the  master-sweeps  in  and  about  the 
metropolis,  confining  the  invitation  to  their 
younger  fry.  Now  and  then  an  elderly  stripling 
would  get  in  among  us,  and  be  good-naturedly 
winked  at ;  but  our  main  body  were  infantry. 
One  unfortunate  wight,  indeed,  who,  relying  upon 
his  dusky  suit,  had  intruded  himself  into  our 
party,  but  by  tokens  was  providentially  discovered 
in  time  to  be  no  chimney-sweeper  (all  is  not  soot 
which  looks  so),  was  quoited  out  of  the  presence 
with  universal  indignation,  as  not  having  on  the 
wedding  garment ;  but  in  general  the  greatest 
harmony  prevailed.  The  place  chosen  was  a 
convenient  spot  among  the  pens,  at  the  north 
side  of  the  fair,  not  so  far  distant  as  to  be  imper- 
vious to  the  agreeable  hubbub  of  that  vanity  ;  but 
remote  enough  not  to  be  obvious  to  the  interrup- 
tion of  every  gaping  spectator  in  it.  The  guests 
assembled  about  seven.  In  those  little  temporary 
parlors  three  tables  were  spread  with  napery,  not 


202  jSesdi^Qs  of  ;isiia. 

so  fine  as  substantial,  and  at  every  board  a  comely 
hostess  presided  with  her  pan  of  hissing  sausages. 
The  nostrils  of  the  young  rogues  dilated  at  the 
savor.  James  White,  as  head  waiter,  had  charge 
of  the  first  table  ;  and  myself,  with  our  trusty 
companion  Bigod,  ordinarily  ministered  to  the 
other  two.  There  was  clambering  and  jostling, 
you  may  be  sure,  who  should  get  at  the  first 
table, — for  Rochester  in  his  maddest  days  could 
not  have  done  the  humors  of  the  scene  with  more 
spirit  than  my  friend.  After  some  general  expres- 
sion of  thanks  for  the  honor  the  company  had 
done  him,  his  inaugural  ceremony  was  to  clasp 
the  greasy  waist  of  old  dame  Ursula  (the  fattest 
of  the  three),  that  stood  frying  and  fretting,  half- 
blessing,  half-cursing  '' the  gentleman,"  and  im- 
print upon  her  chaste  lips  a  tender  salute,  whereat 
the  universal  host  would  set  up  a  shout  that  tore 
the  concave,  while  hundreds  of  grinning  teeth 
startled  the  night  with  their  brightness.  Oh,  it 
was  a  pleasure  to  see  the  sable  younkers  lick  in 
the  unctuous  meat,  with  his  more  unctuous  say- 
ings,— how  he  would  fit  the  titbits  to  the  puny 
mouths,  reserving  the  lengthier  links  for  the 
seniors, — how  he  would  intercept  a  morsel  even 
in  the  jaws  of  some  young  desperado,  declaring  it 
''must  to  the  pan  again  be  browned  for  it  was 
not  fit  for  a  gentleman's  eating," — how  he  would 
recommend  this  slice  of  white  bread,  or  that  piece 
of  kissing-crust,  to  a  tender  juvenile,  advising 
them  all  to  have  a  care  of  cracking  their  teeth, 
which  were  their  best  patrimony, — how  genteelly 
he  would  deal  about  the  small  ale,  as  if  it  were 
wine,  naming  the  brewer,  and  protesting,  if  it  were 
not  good,  he  should  lose  their  custom ;  with  a 


Zbc  praise  ot  Gbimnc^=Sweeper0.        203 

special  recommendation  to  wipe  the  lip  before 
drinking.  Then  we  had  our  toasts — "The  King  !  " 
—  "The  Cloth," — which,  whether  they  understood 
or  not,  was  equally  diverting  and  flattering ; — and 
for  a  crowning  sentiment,  which  never  failed, 
"May  the  Brush  supersede  the  Laurel!"  All 
these,  and  fifty  other  fancies,  which  were  rather 
felt  than  comprehended  by  his  guests,  would  he 
utter,  standing  upon  tables,  and  prefacing  every 
sentiment  with  a  "Gentlemen,  give  me  leave  to 
propose  so  and  so,"  which  was  a  prodigious  com- 
fort to  those  young  orphans  ;  every  now  and  then 
stuffing  into  his  mouth  (for  it  did  not  do  to  be 
squeamish  on  these  occasions)  indiscriminate 
pieces  of  those  reeking  sausages,  which  pleased 
them  mightily,  and  was  the  savoriest  part,  you 
may  believe,  of  the  entertainment. 

Golden  lads  and  lasses  must, 

As  chimney-sweepers,  come  to  dust. 

James  White  is  extinct,  and  with  him  these  sup- 
pers have  long  ceased.  He  carried  away  with 
him  half  the  fun  of  the  world  when  he  died — of 
my  world  at  least.  His  old  clients  look  for  him 
among  the  pens  ;  and,  missing  him,  reproach  the 
altered  feast  of  St.  Bartholomew,  and  the  glory  of 
Smithfield  departed  forever. 


A  COMPLAINT  OF   THE    DECAY    OF    BEG- 
GARS IN  THE  METROPOLIS. 


The  all-sweeping  besom  of  societarian  refor- 
mation— your  only  modern  Alcides'  club  to  rid 
the  time  of  its  abuses — is  uplift  with  many-handed 
sway  to  extirpate  the  last  fluttering  tatters  of  the 
bugbear  jMendicity  from  the  metropolis.  Scrips, 
wallets,  bags, — staves,  dogs,  and  crutches, — the 
whole  mendicant  fraternity  with  all  their  baggage, 
are  fast  posting  out  of  the  purlieus  of  this  eleventh 
persecution.  From  the  crowded  crossing,  from 
the  corners  of  streets  and  turnings  of  alleys,  the 
parting  Genius  of  Beggary  is  with  *' sighing  sent." 

I  do  not  approve  of  this  wholesale  going  to 
work;  this  impertinent  crusado,  or  helliwi  ad  exter- 
iiiinationem,  proclaimed  against  a  species.  Much 
good  might  be  sucked  from  these  Beggars. 

They  were  the  oldest  and  honorablest  form  of 
pauperism.  Their  appeals  were  to  our  common 
nature  ;  less  revolting  to  an  ingenious  mind  than 
to  be  a  suppliant  to  the  particular  humors  or  caprice 
of  any  fellow-creature,  or  set  of  fellow-creatures, 
parochial  or  societarian.  Theirs  were  the  only  rates 
uninvidious  in  the  levy,  ungrudged  in  the  assess- 
ment. 

There  was  a  dignity  springing  from  the  very 
depth  of  their  desolation  ;  as  to  be  naked  is  to  be 
204 


21  Complaint  of  tbe  2)eca^  ot  :Bcqq^x6,     205 

so  much  nearer  to  the  being  a  man,  than  to  go  in 
livery. 

The  greatest  spirits  have  felt  this  in  their  re- 
verses ;  and  when  Dionysius  from  king  turned 
schoohnaster,  do  we  feel  any  thing  towards  him  but 
contempt  ?  Could  Vandyke  have  made  a  picture 
of  him,  swaying  a  ferula  for  a  sceptre,  which 
would  have  affected  our  minds  with  the  same 
heroic  pity,  the  same  compassionate  admiration, 
with  which  we  regard  his  Belisarius  begging  for 
an  obolum  ?  Would  the  moral  have  been  more 
graceful,  more  pathetic  ? 

The  Blind  Beggar  in  the  legend — the  father  of 
pretty  Bessy — whose  story  doggerel  rhymes  and 
ale-house  signs  cannot  so  degrade  or  attenuate, 
but  that  some  sparks  of  a  lustrous  spirit  will  shine 
through  the  disguisements, — this  noble  Earl  of 
Cornwall  (as  indeed  he  was)  and  memorable  sport 
of  fortune,  fleeing  from  the  unjust  sentence  of  his 
liege  lord,  stripped  of  all,  and  seated  on  the  flovver- 
inof  wreen  of  Bethnal,  with  his  more  fresh  and 
springing  daughter  by  his  side,  illumining  his  rags 
and  his  beggary, — would  the  child  and  parent 
have  cut  a  better  figure  doing  the  honors  of  a 
counter,  or  expiating  their  fallen  condition  upon 
the  three-foot  eminence  of  some  sempstering 
shopboard  ? 

In  tale  or  history  your  beggar  is  ever  the  just 
antipode  to  your  King.  The  poets  and  roman- 
cical  writers  (as  dear  Margaret  Newcastle  would 
call  them),  when  they  would  most  sharply  and 
feelingly  paint  a  reverse  of  fortune,  never  stop 
till  they  have  brought  down  their  hero  in  good 
earnest  to  rags  and  the  wallet.  The  depth  of  the 
descent  illustrates  the  height  he  falls  from.     There 


2o6  Bssa^s  of  ;i£[la. 

is  no  medium  which  can  be  presented  to  the  im- 
agination without  offence.  There  is  no  breaking 
the  fall.  Lear,  thrown  from  his  palace,  must 
divest  him  of  his  garments,  till  he  answer  "mere 
nature  "  ;  and  Cresseid,  fallen  from  a  prince's  love, 
must  extend  her  pale  arms,  pale  with  other  white- 
ness than  of  beauty,  supplicating  lazar  alms  with 
bell  and  clap-dish. 

The  Lucian  wits  knew  this  very  well ;  and, 
with  a  converse  policy,  when  they  would  express 
scorn  of  greatness  without  the  pity,  they  show  us 
an  Alexander  in  the  shades  cobbling  shoes,  or  a 
Semiramis  getting  up  foul  linen. 

How  would  it  sound  in  song,  that  a  great 
monarch  had  declined  his  affections  upon  the 
daughter  of  a  baker  ?  yet,  do  we  feel  the  imagina- 
tion at  all  violated  when  we  read  the  "  true  ballad," 
where  King  Cophetua  woos  the  beggar  maid  ? 

Pauperism,  pauper,  poor  man,  are  expressions  of 
pity,  but  pity  alloyed  with  contempt.  No  one  prop- 
erly contemns  a  beggar.  Poverty  is  a  comparative 
thing,  and  each  degree  of  it  is  mocked  by  its 
"neighbor  grice. "  Its  poor  rents  and  comings-in 
are  soon  summed  up  and  told.  Its  pretences  to 
property  are  almost  ludicrous.  Its  pitiful  attempts 
to  save  excite  a  smile.  Every  scornful  companion 
can  weigh  his  trifle-bigger  purse  against  it.  Poor 
man  reproaches  poor  man  in  the  streets  vv'ith  im- 
politic mention  of  his  condition,  his  own  being  a 
shade  better,  while  the  rich  pass  by  and  jeer  at 
both.  No  rascally  comparative  insults  a  beggar, 
or  thinks  of  weighing  purses  with  him.  He  is  not 
in  the  scale  of  comparison.  He  is  not  under 
the  measure  of  property.  He  confessedly  hath 
none,  any  more  than  a  dog  or  a  sheep.     No  one 


%  Complaint  ot  tbe  H)ecas  ot  IQcqq^vs,     207 

twitteth  him  with  ostentation  above  his  means. 
No  one  accuses  him  of  pride,  or  upbraideth  him 
with  mock  humility.  None  jostle  with  him  for 
the  wall,  or  pick  quarrels  for  precedency.  No 
wealthy  neighbor  seeketh  to  eject  him  from  his 
tenement.  No  man  sues  him.  No  man  goes  to 
law  with  him.  If  I  were  not  the  independent 
gentleman  that  I  am,  rather  than  I  would  be  a 
retainer  to  the  great,  a  led  captain,  or  a  poor 
relation,  I  would  choose,  out  of  the  delicacy  and 
true  greatness  of  my  mind,  to  be  a  beggar. 

Rags,  which  are  the  approach  of  poverty,  are 
the  beggar's  robes,  and  graceful  insignia  of  his  pro- 
fession, his  tenure,  his  full  dress,  the  suit  in  which 
he  is  expected  to  show  himself  in  public.  He  is 
never  out  of  the  fashion,  or  limpeth  awkwardly 
behind  it.  He  is  not  required  to  put  on  court 
mourning.  He  weareth  all  colors,  fearing  none. 
His  costume  hath  undergone  less  change  than  the 
Quaker's.  He  is  the  only  man  in  the  universe 
who  is  not  obliged  to  study  appearances.  The 
ups  and  downs  of  the  world  concern  him  no  longer. 
He  alone  continueth  in  one  stay.  The  price  of 
stock  or  land  affecteth  him  not.  The  fluctuations 
of  agricultural  or  commercial  prosperity  touch  him 
not,  or  at  worst  but  change  his  customers.  He 
is  not  expected  to  become  bail  or  surety  for  any 
one.  No  man  troubleth  him  with  questioning  his 
religion  or  politics.  He  is  the  only  free  man  in 
the  universe. 

The  mendicants  of  this  great  city  were  so  many 
of  her  sights,  her  lions.  I  can  no  more  spare  them 
than  I  could  the  Cries  of  London.  No  corner  of 
a  street  is  complete  without  them.  They  are  as 
indispensable  as  the  ballad  singer ;  and  in  their 


2o8  Besa^s  ot  Blia. 

picturesque  attire  as  ornamental  as  the  signs  of 
old  London.  They  were  the  standing  morals, 
emblems,  mementos,  dial-mottoes,  the  spital  ser- 
mons, the  books  for  children,  the  salutary  checks 
and  pauses  to  the  high  and  rushing  tide  of  greasy 
citizenry  : 

Look 
Upon  that  poor  and  broken  bankrupt  there. 

Above  all,  those  old  blind  Tobits  that  used  to  line 
the  wall  of  Lincoln's-Inn  Garden,  before  modern 
fastidiousness  had  expelled  them,  casting  up  their 
ruined  orbs  to  catch  a  ray  of  pity,  and  (if  possible) 
of  light,  with  their  faithful  Dog  Guide  at  their  feet, 
— whither  are  they  fled  ?  or  into  what  corners, 
blind  as  themselves,  have  they  been  driven,  out 
of  the  wholesome  air  and  sun-warmth  ;  immersed 
between  four  walls,  in  what  withering  poorhouse 
do  they  endure  the  penalty  of  double  darkness, 
where  the  chink  of  the  dropt  half-penny  no  more 
consoles  their  forlorn  bereavement,  far  from  the 
sound  of  the  cheerful  and  hope-stirring  tread  of 
the  passenger  ?  Where  hang  their  useless  staves  ; 
and  who  will  farm  their  dogs  ?  Have  the  over- 
seers of  St.  L caused  them  to  be  shot  .'*  or  were 

they  tied  up  in  sacks,  and  dropt  into  the  Thames, 

at   the    suggestion    of    B ,    the    mild    rector 

of ? 


Well  fare  the  soul  of  unfastidious  Vincent  Bourne, 
most  classical,  and,  at  the  same  time,  most 
English  of  the  Latinists  ! — who  has  treated  of 
this  human  and  quadrupedal  alliance,  this  dog 
and  man  friendship,  in  the  sweetest  of  his  poems, 
the  "  Epitaphium  in  Canera,"or  **  Dog's  Epitaph." 
Reader,  peruse  it,  and  say  if  customary  sights. 


B  Complaint  of  tbe  S>ecaig  of  JBeagarg.     209 

which  could  call  up  such  gentle  poetry  as  this, 
were  of  a  nature  to  do  more  harm  or  good  to  the 
moral  sense  of  the  passengers  through  the  daily- 
thoroughfares  of  a  vast  and  busy  metropolis. 

Pauperis  hie  Iri  requiesco  Lyciscus,  herilis, 
Dum  vixi,  tutela  vigil  columeuque  senectae, 
Dux  caeco  fidus  :  nee,  me  dueente,  solebat, 
Praetenso  hinc  atque  hiiic  baculo,  per  iniqua  locorum 
Incertam  explorare  viam  ;  sed  fila  seeutus, 
Quae  dubios  regerent  passus,  vestigia  tuta 
Fixit  inoffenso  gressu  ;  gelidumque  sedile 
In  nudo  naetus  saxo,  qua  praetereuntium 
Unda  frequens  confluxit,  ibi  miserisque  tenebras, 
Lamentis,  noetemque  oculis  ploravit  obortam. 
Ploravit  nee  frustra  ;  obolum  dedit  alter  et  alter, 
Quels  eorda  et  mentem  indiderat  natura  benignam. 
Ad  latus  interea  jacui  sopitus  herile, 
Vel  mediis  vigil  in  somnis  ;  ad  herilia  jussa 
Auresque  atque  animum  arreetus,  seu  frustula  amice 
Porrexit  soeiasque  dapes,  seu  longa  diei 
Taedia  perpessus,  reditum  sub  nocte  parabat. 
Hi  mores,  hase  vita  fuit,  dum  fata  siuebant, 
Dum  neque  languebam  morbis,  nee  inerte  senecta  ; 
Quae  tandem  obrepsit,  veterique  satellite  czecum 
Orbavit  dominum  :  prisei  sed  gratia  facti 
Ne  tota  intereat,  longos  delecta  per  annos, 
Exiguum  hunc  Irus  tumulum  de  eespite  fecit, 
Etsi  inopis,  non  ingratse,  munuscula  dextrse  ; 
Carmine  signavitque  brevi,  dominumque  canemque 
Quod  memoret,  fidumque  canem  dominumque  benignum, 

Poor  Irus'  faithful  wolf-dog  here  I  lie. 

That  wont  to  tend  my  old  blind  master's  steps, 

His  guide  and  guard  :  nor,  while  my  service  lasted, 

Had  he  occasion  for  that  staff,  with  which 

He  now  goes  picking  out  his  path  in  fear 

Over  the  highways  and  crossings  ;  but  would  plant, 

Safe  in  the  conduct  of  my  friendly  string, 

A  firm  foot  forward  still,  till  he  had  reach'd 

His  poor  seat  on  some  stone,  nigh  where  the  tide 

Of  passers-by  in  thickest  confluence  flow'd  : 

14 


210  Essaigs  of  ;eiia. 

To  whom  with  loud  and  passionate  laments 

From  mom  to  eve  his  dark  estate  he  wail'd. 

Nor  wail'd  to  all  in  vain  :  some  here  and  there, 

The  well-disposed  and  good,  their  pennies  gave. 

I  meantime  at  his  feet  obsequious  slept ; 

Not  all-asleep  in  sleep,  but  heart  and  ear 

Prick'd  up  at  his  least  motion,  to  receive 

At  his  kind  hand  my  customary  crumbs. 

And  common  portion  in  his  feast  of  scraps  ,. 

Or  when  night  wam'd  us  homeward,  tired  and  spent 

With  our  long  day  and  tedious  beggary. 

These  were  my  manners,  this  my  way  of  life, 
Till  age  and  slow  disease  me  overtook, 
And  sever'd  from  my  sightless  master's  side. 
But  lest  the  grace  of  so  good  deeds  should  die, 
Through  tract  of  years  in  mute  oblivion  lost, 
This  slender  tomb  of  turf  hath  Irus  reared, 
Cheap  monument  of  no  ungrudging  hand, 
And  with  short  verse  inscribed  it  to  attest, 
In  long  and  lasting  union  to  attest. 
The  virtues  of  the  Beggar  and  his  Dog. 

These  dim  eyes  have  in  vain  explored  for  some 
months  past  a  well-known  figure,  or  part  of  the 
figure  of  a  man,  who  used  to  glide  his  comely  up- 
per half  over  the  pavements  of  London,  wheeling 
along  with  most  ingenious  celerity  upon  a  ma- 
chine of  wood  :  a  spectacle  to  natives,  to  foreign- 
ers, and  to  children.  He  was  of  a  robust  make, 
with  a  florid,  sailor-like  complexion,  and  his  head 
was  bare  to  the  storm  and  sunshine.  He  was  a 
natural  curiosity,  a  speculation  to  the  scientific,  a 
prodigy  to  the  simple.  The  infant  would  stare  at 
the  mighty  man  brought  down  to  his  own  level. 
The  common  cripple  would  despise  his  own  pusil- 
lanimity, viewing  the  hale  stoutness  and  hearty 
heart  of  this  half-limbed  giant.  Few  but  must 
have  noticed  him,  for  the  accident  which  brought 
him  low  took  place  during  the  riots  of  1780,  and 


B  Complaint  of  tbe  ©eca^  ot  JSegfiars.     2 1 1 

he  has  been  a  groundling-  so  long.  He  seemed 
earthborn,  an  Antaeus,  and  to  suck  in  fresh  vigor 
from  the  soil  which  he  neighbored.  He  was  a 
grand  fragment  :  as  good  as  an  Elgin  marble. 
The  nature  which  should  have  recruited  his  reft 
legs  and  thighs  was  not  lost,  but  only  retired  into 
his  upper  parts,  and  he  was  half  a  Hercules.  I 
heard  a  tremendous  voice  thundering  and  growl- 
ing, as  before  an  earthquake,  and,  casting  down 
my  eyes,  it  was  this  mandrake  reviling  a  steed 
that  had  started  at  his  portentous  appearance. 
He  seemed  to  want  but  his  just  stature  to  have 
rent  the  offending  quadruped  in  shivers.  He  was 
as  the  man  part  of  a  centaur,  from  which  the 
horse  half  had  been  cloven  in  some  dire  Lapithan 
controversy.  He  moved  on,  as  if  he  could  have 
made  shift  with  yet  half  of  the  body-portion  which 
was  left  him.  The  os  sublime  was  not  wanting  ; 
and  he  threw  out  yet  a  jolly  countenance  upon 
the  heavens.  Forty-and-two  years  had  he  driven 
this  out-of-door  trade  ;  and  now  that  his  hair  is 
grizzled  in  the  service,  but  his  good  spirits  no  way 
impaired,  because  he  is  not  content  to  exchange 
his  free  air  and  exercise  for  the  restraints  of  a 
poorhouse,  he  is  expiating  his  contumacy  in  one 
of  those  houses  (ironically  christened)  of  Correc- 
tion. 

Was  a  daily  spectacle  like  this  to  be  deemed  a 
nuisance,  which  called  for  legal  interference  to 
remove  .?  or  not  rather  a  salutary  and  a  touching 
object,  to  the  passers-by  in  a  great  city  }  Among 
her  shows,  her  museums,  and  supplies  of  ever- 
gaping  curiosity  (and  what  else  but  an  accumu- 
lation of  sights — endless  sights — is  a  great  city  ; 
or  for  what  else  is  it  desirable  ?)  was  there  not 


212  MSS^'QS  of  IBM, 

room  for  one  Zusus,  (not  NahircB,  indeed,  but) 
Accidcnthnn  ?  What  if  in  forty-and-two  years' 
going-  about,  the  man  had  scraped  tog-ether  enough 
to  give  a  portion  to  his  child  (as  the  rumor  ran), 
of  a  few  hundreds, — whom  had  he  injured? — 
whom  had  he  imposed  upon  ?  The  contributors 
had  enjoyed  their  sight  for  their  pennies.  What 
if  after  being  exposed  all  day  to  the  heats,  the 
rains,  and  the  frosts  of  heaven, — shuffling  his 
ungainly  tnmk  along  in  an  elaborate  and  painful 
motion, — he  was  enabled  to  retire  at  night  to 
enjoy  himself  at  a  club  of  his  fellow-cripples  over 
a  dish  of  hot  meat  and  vegetables,  as  the  charge 
was  gravely  brought  against  him  by  a  clergyman 
deposing  before  a  House  of  Commons'  Committee, 
— was  this,  or  was  his  truly  paternal  consider- 
ation, which  (if  a  fact)  deserved  a  statue  rather 
than  a  whipping-post,  and  is  inconsistent  at  least 
with  the  exaggeration  of  nocturnal  orgies  which  he 
has  been  slandered  with, — a  reason  that  he  should 
be  deprived  of  his  chosen,  harmless,  nay,  edifying 
way  of  life,  and  be  committed  in  hoary  age  for  a 
sturdy  vagabond  ? 

There  was  a  Yorick  once,  whom  it  would  not 
have  shamed  to  have  sat  down  at  the  cripple's 
feast,  and  to  have  thrown  in  his  benediction,  ay, 
and  his  mite  too,  for  a  companionable  symbol. 
"Age,  thou  hast  lost  thy  breed." 

Half  of  these  stories  about  prodigious  fortunes 
made  by  begging  are  (I  verily  believe)  misers' 
calumnies.  One  was  much  talked  of  in  the  public 
papers  some  time  since,  and  the  usual  charitable 
inferences  deduced.  A  clerk  in  the  bank  was  sur- 
prised with  the  announcement  of  a  five-hundred- 
pound  legacy  left  him  by  a  person  whose  name 


B  Complaint  of  tbe  2)eca^  of  :!BcQQaxs*    213 

he  was  a  stranger  to.  It  seems  that  in  his  daily- 
morning  walks  from  Peckham  (or  some  village 
thereabouts)  where  he  lived,  to  his  office,  it  had 
been  his  practice  for  the  last  twenty  years  to  drop 
his  half-penny  duly  into  the  hat  of  some  blind 
Bartimeus,  that  sat  begging  alms  by  the  way-side 
in  the  Borough.  The  good  old  beggar  recognized 
his  daily  benefactor  by  the  voice  only  ;  and,  when 
he  died,  left  all  the  amassings  of  his  alms  (that 
had  been  half  a  century  perhaps  in  the  accumu- 
lating), to  his  old  bank  friend.  Was  this  a  story 
to  purse  up  people's  hearts,  and  pennies,  against 
giving  an  alms  to  the  blind  ? — or  not  rather  a 
beautiful  moral  of  well-directed  charity  on  the 
one  part,  and  noble  gratitude  on  the  other  ! 

I  sometimes  wish  I  had  been  that  bank  clerk. 

I  seem  to  remember  a  poor  old  grateful  kind 
of  creature,  blinking,  and  looking  up  with  his  no 
eyes  in  the  sun. 

Is  it  possible  I  could  have  steeled  my  purse 
against  him  ? 

Perhaps  I  had  no  small  change. 

Reader,  do  not  be  frightened  at  the  hard  words, 
imposition,  imposture — give,  and  ask  no  questions. 
Cast  thy  bread  upon  the  waters.  Some  have  un- 
awares (like  this  bank  clerk)  entertained  angels. 

Shut  not  thy  purse-strings  always  against  painted 
distress.  Act  a  charity  sometimes.  When  a  poor 
creature  (outwardly  and  visibly  such)  comes  be- 
fore thee, do  not  stay  to  inquire  v/hether  the  ''seven 
small  children,"  in  whose  name  he  implores  thy 
assistance,  have  a  veritable  existence.  Rake  not 
into  the  bowels  of  unwelcome  truth,  to  save  a  half- 
penny. It  is  good  to  believe  him.  If  he  be  not 
all  that  he  pretendeth,  give,  and  under  a  personate 


214  iBesn^s  ot  JEUa, 

father  of  a  family,  think  (if  thou  pleasest)  that  thou 
hast  reheved  an  indigent  bachelor.  When  they 
come  with  their  counterfeit  looks,  and  mumping 
tones,  think  them  players.  You  pay  your  money 
to  see  a  comedian  feign  these  things,  which, 
concerning  these  poor  people,  thou  canst  not 
certainly  tell  whether  they  are  feigned  or  not. 


A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST  PIG. 


Mankind,  says  a  Chinese  manuscript,  which  my 
friend  M.  was  obliging  enough  to  read  and  ex- 
plain to  me,  for  the  lirst  seventy  thousand  ages 
ate  their  meat  raw,  clawing  or  biting  it  from  the 
living  animal,  just  as  they  do  in  Abyssinia  to  this 
day.  This  period  is  not  obscurely  hinted  at  by 
their  great  Confucius  in  the  second  chapter  of  his 
* '  Mundane  Mutations, "  where  he  designates  a  kind 
of  golden  age  by  the  term  Cho-fang,  literally  the 
Cook's  Holiday.  The  manuscript  goes  on  to  say, 
that  the  art  of  roasting  or  rather  broiling  (which  I 
take  to  be  the  elder  brother)  was  accidentally  dis- 
covered in  the  manner  followinsf :  The  swine- 
herd,  Ho-ti,  having  gone  out  into  the  woods  one 
morning,  as  his  manner  was,  to  collect  mast  for  his 
hogs,  left  his  cottage  in  the  care  of  his  eldest  son, 
Bo-bo,  a  great  lubberly  boy,  who  being  fond  of 
playing  with  fire,  as  younkers  of  his  age  commonly 
are,  let  some  sparks  escape  into  a  bundle  of 
straw,  which  kindled  quickly,  spread  the  confla- 
gration over  every  part  of  their  poor  mansion,  till 
it  was  reduced  to  ashes.  Together  with  the  cot- 
tage (a  sorry  antediluvian  makeshift  of  a  building, 
you  may  think  it),  what  was  of  much  more  im- 
portance, a  fine  litter  of  new-farrowed  pigs,  no 
less  than  nine  in  number,  perished.     China  pigs 


2x6  Bs0ai26  of  JBlin. 

have  been  esteemed  a  luxury  all  over  the  East, 
from  the  remotest  periods  that  we  read  of.  Bo-bo 
was  in  the  utmost  consternation,  as  you  may 
think,  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of  the  tenement, 
which  his  father  and  he  could  easily  build  up 
again  with  a  very  few  branches,  and  labor  of  an 
hour  or  two,  at  any  time,  as  for  the  loss  of  the 
pigs.  While  he  was  thinking  what  he  should 
say  to  his  father,  and  wringing  his  hands  over 
the  smoking  remnants  of  one  of  those  untime- 
ly sufferers,  an  odor  assailed  his  nostrils,  unlike 
any  scent  which  he  had  before  experienced. 
What  could  it  proceed  from  ? — not  from  the  burnt 
cottage, — he  had  smelt  that  smell  before, — indeed 
this  was  by  no  means  the  first  accident  of  the 
kind  which  had  occurred  through  the  negligence 
of  this  unlucky  young  firebrand.  Much  less  did 
it  resemble  that  of  any  known  herb,  weed,  or 
flower.  A  premonitory  moistening  at  the  same 
time  overflowed  his  nether  lip.  He  knew  not 
what  to  think.  He  next  stooped  down  to  feel  the 
pig,  if  there  were  any  signs  of  life  in  it.  He 
burnt  his  fingers,  and  to  cool  them  he  applied 
them  in  his  booby  fashion  to  his  mouth.  Som.e 
of  the  crumbs  of  the  scorched  skin  had  come 
away  with  his  fingers,  and  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life  (in  the  world's  life  indeed,  for  before  him 
no  man  had  known  it),  he  tasted — crackling! 
Again  he  felt  and  fumbled  at  the  pig.  It  did  not 
burn  him  so  much  now,  still  he  licked  his  fingers 
from  a  sort  of  habit.  The  truth  at  length  broke 
into  his  slow  understanding,  that  it  was  the  pig 
that  smelt  so,  and  the  pig  that  tasted  so  delicious  ; 
and  surrendering  himself  up  to  the  new-born 
pleasure,  he  fell  to  tearing  up  Vv'hole   handfuls   of 


B  Dissertation  upon  IRoast  pffl,         217 

the  scorched  skin  with  the  flesh  next  it,  and  was 
cramming  it  down  his  throat  in  his  beastly  fashion, 
when  his  sire  entered  amid  the  smoking  rafters, 
armed  with  retributory  cudgel,  and  finding  how 
affairs  stood,  began  to  rain  blows  upon  the  young 
rogue's  shoulders,  as  thick  as  hailstones,  which 
Bo-bo  heeded  not  any  more  than  if  they  had  been 
flies.  The  tickling  pleasure  which  he  experienced 
in  his  lower  regions  had  rendered  him  quite 
callous  to  any  inconveniences  he  might  feel  in 
those  remote  quarters.  His  father  might  lay  on, 
but  he  could  not  beat  him  from  his  pig,  till  he  had 
fairly  made  an  end  of  it,  when,  becoming  a  little 
more  sensible  of  his  situation,  something  like  the 
following  dialogue  ensued. 

"You  graceless  whelp,  what  have  you  got  there 
devouring  ?  Is  it  not  enough  that  you  have  burnt 
me  down  three  houses  with  your  dog's  tricks,  and 
be  hanged  to  you  !  but  you  must  be  eating  fire, 
and  I  know  not  what ; — what  have  you  got  there, 
I  say  ? " 

"O  father,  the  pig,  the  pig  !  do  come  and  taste 
how  nice  the  burnt  pig  eats. '' 

The  ears  of  Ho-ti  tingled  vv'ith  horror.  He 
cursed  his  son,  and  he  cursed  himself  that  ever 
he  should  beget  a  son  that  should  eat  burnt  pig. 

Bo-bo,  whose  scent  was  wonderfull}^  sharpened 
since  morning,  soon  raked  out  another  pig,  and 
fairly  rending  it  asunder,  thrust  the  lesser  half 
by  main  force  into  the  fist  of  Ho-ti,  still  shouting 
out:  "Eat,  eat,  eat  the  burnt  pig,  father,  only 
taste  ;  O  Lord  !  " — with  such  like  barbarous  ejacu- 
lations, cramming  all  the  while  as  if  he  would 
choke. 

Ho-ti  trembled  in  every  joint  while  he  grasped 


2i8  ;iE06as3  ot  JSlia. 

the  abominable  thing,  wavering  whether  he 
should  not  put  his  son  to  death  for  an  unnatural 
young  monster,  when  the  crackling  scorching  his 
fingers,  as  it  had  done  his  son's,  and  applying  the 
same  remedy  to  them,  he  in  his  turn  tasted  some 
of  its  flavor,  which,  make  what  sour  mouths  he 
would  for  a  pretence,  proved  not  altogether  dis- 
pleasing to  him.  In  conclusion  (for  the  manu- 
script here  is  a  little  tedious)  both  father  and  son 
fairly  sat  down  to  the  mess,  and  never  left  off  till 
they  had  dispatched  all  that  remained  of  the 
litter. 

Bo-bo  was  strictly  enjoined  not  to  let  the  secret 
escape,  for  the  neighbors  would  certainly  have 
stoned  them  for  a  couple  of  abominable  wretches, 
who  could  think  of  improving  upon  the  good  meat 
which  God  had  sent  them.  Nevertheless,  strange 
stories  got  about.  It  was  observed  that  Ho-ti*s 
cottage  was  now  burnt  down  more  frequently 
than  ever.  Nothing  but  fires  from  this  time  for- 
ward. Some  would  break  out  in  broad  day, 
others  in  the  nighttime.  As  often  as  the  sow 
farrowed,  so  sure  was  the  house  of  Ho-ti  to  be  in 
a  blaze  ;  and  Ho-ti  himself,  which  was  the  more 
remarkable,  instead  of  chastising  his  son,  seemed 
to  grow  more  indulgent  to  him  than  ever.  At 
length  they  were  watched,  the  terrible  mystery 
discovered,  and  father  and  son  summoned  to  take 
their  trial  at  Pekin,  then  an  inconsiderable  assize 
town.  Evidence  was  given,  the  obnoxious  food 
itself  produced  in  court,  and  verdict  about  to  be 
pronounced,  when  the  foreman  of  the  jury  begged 
that  some  of  the  burnt  pig,  of  which  the  culprits 
stood  accused,  might  be  handed  into  the  box.  He 
handled  it,  and  they  all  handled  it ;  and  burning 


21  Dissertation  upon  TRoast  ipig.         219 

their  fingers,  as  Bo-bo  and  his  father  had  done 
before  them,  and  nature  prompting  to  each  of 
them  the  same  remedy,  against  the  face  of  all  the 
facts,  and  the  clearest  charge  which  judge  had 
ever  given, — to  the  surprise  of  the  whole  court, 
townsfolk,  strangers,  reporters,  and  all  present, — ■ 
without  leaving  the  box,  or  any  manner  of  con- 
sultation whatever,  they  brought  in  a  simultaneous 
verdict  of  Not  Guilty. 

The  judge,  who  was  a  shrewd  fellovv',  winked 
at  the  manifest  iniquity  of  the  decision  ;  and  when 
the  court  was  dismissed,  went  privily,  and  bought 
up  all  the  pigs  tliat  could  be  had  for  love  or  money. 
In  a  few  days  his  Lordship's  town-house  Vv^-as 
observed  to  be  on  fire.  The  thing  took  wing, 
and  now  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  but  fire  in 
every  direction.  Fuel  and  pigs  grew  enormously 
dear  all  over  the  district.  The  insurance  offices 
one  and  all  shut  up  shop.  People  built  slighter 
and  slighter  every  day,  until  it  was  feared  that 
the  very  science  of  architecture  would  in  no  long 
time  be  lost  to  the  world.  Thus  this  custom  of 
firing  houses  continued,  till  in  process  of  time, 
says  my  manuscript,  a  sage  arose,  like  our  Locke, 
who  made  a  discovery,  that  the  flesh  of  swine,  or 
indeed  of  any  other  animal,  might  be  cooked  {burnt, 
as  they  called  it)  without  the  necessity  of  con- 
suming a  whole  house  to  dress  it.  Then  first 
began  the  rude  form  of  a  gridiron.  Roasting  by 
the  string  or  spit  came  in  a  century  or  two  later  ; 
I  forget  in  whose  dynasty.  By  such  slow  de- 
grees, concludes  the  manuscript,  do  the  most 
useful,  and  seemingly  the  most  obvious  arts  make 
their  way  among  mankind. 

Without  placing  too  implicit  faith  in  the  account 


220  B6sa^0  ot  IBM* 

above  given,  it  must  be  agreed,  that  if  a  worthy 
pretext  for  so  dr.ngerous  an  experiment  as  setting 
houses  on  fire  (especially  in  these  days)  could  be 
assigned  in  favor  of  any  culinary  object,  that  pre- 
text and  excuse  might  be  found  in  roast  pig. 

Of  all  the  delicacies  in  the  whole  77ioclus  edihilis, 
I  will  maintain  it  to  be  the  most  delicate — prm- 
ceps  ohsoniorum. 

I  speak  not  of  your  grown  porkers — things  be- 
tween pig  and  pork — those  hobbydehoys — but  a 
young  and  tender  suckling — under  a  moon  old — 
guiltless  as  yet  of  the  sty — with  no  original  speck 
of  the  amor  immunditicB,  the  hereditary  failing  of 
the  first  parent,  yet  manifest — his  voice  as  yet  not 
broken,  but  something  between  a  childish  treble 
and  a  grumble — the  mild  fore-runner,  ox prcehidiiniL 
of  a  grunt 

He  must  he  roasted.  I  am  not  ignorant  that  our 
ancestors  ate  them  seethed,  or  boiled, — but  what 
a  sacrifice  of  the  exterior  tegument  ? 

There  is  no  flavor  comparable,  I  will  contend, 
to  that  of  the  crisp,  tawny,  well-watched,  not 
over-roasted,  cracklings  as  it  is  well  called, — the 
very  teeth  are  invited  to  their  share  of  the  pleasure 
at  this  banquet  in  overcoming  the  coy,  brittle  re- 
sistance,— with  the  adhesive  oleaginous — O  call 
it  not  fat  !  but  an  indefinable  sweetness  grov/ing 
up  to  it — the  tender  blossoming  of  fat — fat  cropped 
in  the  bud — taken  in  the  shoot — in  the  first  inno- 
cence— the  cream  and  quintessence  of  the  child- 
pig's   yet  pure  food, the  lean,  no  lean,  but  a 

kind  of  animal  manna, — or,  rather,  fat  and  lean 
(if  it  must  be  so)  so  blended  and  running  into  each 
other,  that  both  together  make  but  one  ambrosian 
result,  or  common  substance. 


21  SJiesettation  upon  IRoast  piQ,         221 

Behold  him,  while  he  is  "  doing  "—it  seemed 
rather  a  refreshing  warmth,  than  a  scorching  heat, 
that  he  is  so  passive  to.  How  equably  he  twirl- 
eth  round  the  string  !  Now  he  is  just  done.  To 
see  the  extreme  sensibility  of  that  tender  age  !  he 
hath  wept  out  his  pretty  eyes — radiant  jellies — ■ 
shooting  stars. 

See  him  in  the  dish,  his  second  cradle,  how  meek 
he  lieth  ! — wouldst  thou  have  had  this  innocent 
grow  up  to  the  grossness  and  indocility  which  too 
often  accompany  maturer  swinehood.?  Ten  to 
one  he  would  have  proved  a  glutton,  a  sloven, 
an  obstinate,  disagreeable  animal — wallowing  in 
all  manner  of  filthy  conversation, — from  these  sins 
he  is  happily  snatched  away, — 

Ere  sin  could  blight  or  sorrow  fade, 
Death  came  with  timely  care — 

his  memory  is  odoriferous, — no  clown  curseth, 
while  his  stomach  half  rejecteth,  the  rank  bacon, 
— no  coal-heaver  bolteth  him  in  reeking  sausages, 
— he  hath  a  fair  sepulchre  in  the  grateful  stomach 
of  the  judicious  epicure, — and  for  such  a  tomb 
might  be  content  to  die. 

He  is  the  best  of  sapors.  Pineapple  is  great. 
She  is  indeed  almost  too  transcendent — a  delight, 
if  not  sinful,  yet  so  like  to  sinning  that  really  a 
tender  conscienced  person  would  do  well  to  pause 
— too  ravishing  for  mortal  taste,  she  woundeth  and 
excoriateth  the  lips  that  approach  her — like  lovers' 
kisses,  she  biteth — she  is  a  pleasure  bordering  on 
pain  from  the  fierceness  and  insanity  of  her  relish 
— but  she  stoppeth  at  the  palate — she  meddleth 
not  with  the  appetite — and  the  coarsest  hunger 
might  barter  her  consistently  for  a  mutton  chop. 


222  JSssa^s  of  Blia, 

Pig- — let  me  speak  his  praise — is  no  less  proA^o- 
catiA^e  of  the  appetite,  than  he  is  satisfactory  to 
the  criticalness  of  the  censorious  palate.  The 
strong  man  may  batten  on  him,  and  the  weakling 
refuseth  not  his  mild  juices. 

Unlike  to  mankind's  mixed  characters,  a  bundle 
of  virtues  and  vices,  inexplicably  intertv/isted,  and 
not  to  be  unravelled  without  hazard,  he  is — good 
throughout.  No  part  of  him  is  better  or  worse 
than  another.  He  helpeth,  as  far  as  his  little 
means  extend,  all  around.  Ke  is  the  least  envi- 
ous of  banquets.      He  is  all  neighbors'  fare. 

I  am  one  of  those  who  freely  and  ungrudgingly 
impart  a  share  of  the  good  things  of  this  life  v/hich 
fall  to  their  lot  (few  as  mine  are  in  this  kind)  to  a 
friend.  I  protest  I  take  as  great  an  interest  in 
my  friend's  pleasures,  his  relishes,  and  proper 
satisfactions,  as  in  mine  own.  "  Presents,"  I  often 
say,  "endear  Absents."  Hares,  pheasants,  par- 
tridges, snipes,  barn-door  chickens  (those  "tame 
villatic  fowl  "),  capons,  plovers,  brawn,  barrels  of 
oysters,  I  dispense  as  freely  as  I  receive  them. 
I  love  to  taste  them,  as  it  were,  upon  the  tongue 
of  my  friend.  But  a  stop  must  be  put  somewhere. 
One  would  not,  like  Lear,  '*  give  every  thing. " 
I  make  my  stand  upon  pig.  Methinks  it  is  an 
ingratitude  to  the  Giver  of  all  good  flavors,  to 
extradomiciliate,  or  send  out  of  the  house,  slight- 
ingly (under  pretext  of  friendship,  or  I  know  not 
what),  a  blessing  so  particularly  adapted,  predes- 
tined, I  may  say,  to  wxy  individual  palate — it  argues 
an  insensibility. 

I  remember  a  touch  of  conscience  in  this  kind 
at  school.  ]\Iy  good  old  aunt,  who  never  parted 
from  me  at  the  end  of  a  holiday  without  stuffing  a 


21  2^i66ertatlon  upon  IRoast  ipig.  223 

sweetmeat,  or  some  nice  thing,  into  my  pocket, 
had  dismissed  me  one  evening-  with  a  smoking 
plumb-cake  fresh  from  the  oven.  In  my  way  to 
school  (it  was  over  London  bridge)  a  grayheaded 
old  beggar  saluted  me  (I  have  no  doubt,  at  this 
time  of  day,  that  he  was  a  counterfeit).  I  had  no 
pence  to  console  him  with,  and  in  the  vanity  of 
self-denial,  and  in  the  very  coxcombry  of  charity, 
schoolboy-like,  I  made  him  a  present  of — the  whole 
cake  !  I  walked  on  a  little,  buoyed  up,  as  one  is 
on  such  occasions,  with  a  sweet  soothing  of  self- 
satisfaction  ;  but  before  I  had  got  to  the  end  of  the 
bridge  my  better  feelings  returned,  and  I  burst 
into  tears,  thinking  how  ungrateful  I  had  been  to 
my  good  aunt,  to  go  and  give  her  good  gift  away 
to  a  stranger  that  I  had  never  seen  before,  and 
who  might  be  a  bad  man  for  aught  I  knew  ;  and 
then  I  thought  of  the  pleasure  my  aunt  would  be 
taking  in  thinking  that  I — I  myself,  and  not  an- 
other— would  eat  her  nice  cake, — and  what  should 
I  say  to  her  the  next  time  I  saw  her, — how  naughty 
I  was  to  part  with  her  pretty  present ! — and  the 
odor  of  that  spicy  cake  came  back  upon  my  recol- 
lection, and  the  pleasure  and  curiosity  I  had  taken 
in  seeing  her  make  it,  and  her  joy  when  she  sent 
it  to  the  oven,  and  how  disappointed  she  would 
feel  that  I  had  never  had  a  bit  of  it  in  my  mouth 
at  last, — and  I  blamed  my  impertinent  spirit  of 
alms-giving,  and  out-of-place  hypocrisy  of  good- 
ness ;  and  above  all  I  wished  never  to  see  the  face 
again  of  that  insidious,  good-for-nothing  old  gray 
impostor. 

Our  ancestors  were  nice  in  their  method  of  sacri- 
ficing these  tender  victims.  We  read  of  pigs  wdiipt 
to  death  with  something  of  a  shock,  as  we  hear  of 


2  24  jEssags  of  JSlia. 

any  other  obsolete  custom.  The  age  of  discipline 
is  gone  by,  or  it  would  be  curious  to  inquire  (in  a 
philosophical  light  merely)  what  effect  this  process 
might  have  towards  intenerating  and  dulcifying 
a  substance,  naturally  so  mild  and  dulcet  as  the 
flesh  of  young  pigs.  It  looks  like  refining  a  violet. 
Yet  we  should  be  cautious,  while  we  condemn 
the  inhumanity,  how  we  censure  the  wisdom  of 
the  practice.      It  might  impart  a  gusto. 

I  remember  an  hypothesis,  argued  upon  by  the 
young  'Students,  when  I  was  at  St.  Omer's,  and 
maintained  with  much  learning  and  pleasantry  on 
both  sides,  "Whether,  supposing  that  the  flavor  of 
a  pig  who  obtained  his  death  by  whipping  {per 
Jldgellatione77i  extremani),  superadded  a  pleasure 
upon  the  palate  of  a  man  more  intense  than  any 
possible  suffering  we  can  conceive  in  the  animal, 
is  man  justified  in  using  that  method  of  putting  the 
animal  to  death .^  "     I  forget  the  decision. 

His  sauce  should  be  considered.  Decidedly,  a 
few  bread-crumbs,  done  up  with  his  liver  and 
brains,  and  a  dash  of  mild  sage.  But  banish, 
dear  Mrs.  Cook,  I  beseech  you,  the  whole  onion 
tribe.  Barbecue  your  whole  hogs  to  your  palate, 
steep  them  in  shalots,  stuff  them  out  with  planta- 
tions of  the  rank  and  guilty  garlic  ;  you  cannot 
poison  them,  or  make  them  stronger  than  they 
are, — but  consider,  he  is  a  weakling — a  flower. 


A   BACHELOR'S  COMPLAINT    OF  THE    BE- 
HAVIOR OF  MARRIED  PEOPLE. 


As  a  single  man,  I  have  spent  a  good  deal  of 
my  time  in  noting  down  the  infirmities  of  Married 
People,  to  console  myself  for  those  superior 
pleasures,  which  they  tell  me  I  have  lost  by  re- 
maining as  I  am. 

I  cannot  say  that  the  quarrels  of  men  and  their 
wives  ever  made  any  great  impression  upon  me, 
or  had  much  tendency  to  strengthen  me  in  those 
anti-social  resolutions,  which  I  took  up  long  ago 
upon  more  substantial  considerations.  What 
oftenest  offends  me  at  the  house  of  married  per- 
sons where  I  visit,  is  an  error  of  quite  a  different 
description  ; — it  is  that  they  are  too  loving. 

Not  too  loving  neither  ;  that  does  not  explain 
my  meaning.  Besides,  why  should  that  offend 
me  ?  The  very  act  of  separating  themselves  from 
the  rest  of  the  world,  to  have  the  fuller  enjoyment 
of  each  other's  society,  implies  that  they  prefer 
one  another  to  all  the  world. 

But  what  I  complain  of  is,  that  they  carry  this 
preference  so  undisguisedly,  they  perk  it  up  in 
the  faces  of  us  single  people  so  shamelessly,  you 
cannot  be  in  their  company  a  moment  without 
being  made  to  feel,  by  some  indirect  hint  or  open 
avowal,  that  j'ou  are  not  the  object  of  this  prefer- 
15  225 


226  E3sa:83  ot  Blia, 

ence.  Now  there  are  some  things  which  give  no 
offence,  while  imphed  or  taken  for  granted  merely  ; 
but  expressed,  there  is  much  offence  in  them.  If 
a  man  were  to  accost  the  first  homely-featured,  or 
plainly-dressed  young  woman  of  his  acquaintance, 
and  tell  her  bluntly,  that  she  was  not  handsome 
or  rich  enough  for  him,  and  he  c6uld  not  marry 
her,  he  would  deserve  to  be  kicked  for  his  ill 
manners  ;  yet  no  less  is  implied  in  the  fact,  that 
having  access  and  opportunity  of  putting  the 
question  to  her,  he  has  never  yet  thought  fit  to 
do  it.  The  young  woman  understands  this  as 
clearly  as  if  it  were  put  into  words  ;  but  no  rea- 
sonable young  woman  would  think  of  making 
this  the  ground  of  a  quarrel.  Just  as  little  right 
have  a  married  couple  to  tell  me  by  speeches, 
and  looks  that  are  scarce  less  plain  than  speeches, 
that  I  am  not  the  happy  man, — the  lady's  choice. 
It  is  enough  that  I  know  I  am  not  ;  I  do  not 
want  this  perpetual  reminding. 

The  display  of  superior  knowledge  or  riches 
may  be  made  sufficiently  mortifying  ;  but  these 
admit  of  a  palliative.  The  knowledge  which  is 
brought  out  to  insult  me,  may  accidentally  im- 
prove me  ;  and  in  the  rich  man's  houses  and  pict- 
ures, his  parks  and  gardens,  I  have  a  temporary 
usufruct  at  least.  But  the  display  of  married  hap- 
piness has  none  of  these  palliatives  ;  it  is  through- 
out pure,  unrecompensed,  unqualified  insult. 

Marriage  by  its  best  title  is  a  monopoly,  and 
not  of  the  least  invidious  sort.  It  is  the  cunning 
of  most  possessors  of  any  exclusive  privilege  to 
keep  their  advantage  as  much  out  of  sight  as 
possible,  that  their  less  favored  neighbors,  seeing 
little  of  the  benefit,  may  the  less  be  disposed  to 


B  :Bncbclox's  Complaint.  227 

question  the  right.  But  these  married  monopolists 
thrust  the  most  obnoxious  part  of  their  patent  into 
our  faces. 

Nothing  is  to  me  more  distasteful  than  that 
entire  complacency  and  satisfaction  which  beam 
in  the  countenances  of  a  new-married  couple, — 
in  that  of  the  lady  particularly ;  it  tells  you,  that 
her  lot  is  disposed  of  in  this  w^orld  ;  that  jyou  can 
have  no  hopes  of  her.  It  is  true,  I  have  none, 
nor  wishes  either,  perhaps  ;  but  this  is  one  of  those 
truths  which  ought,  as  I  have  said  before,  to  be 
taken  for  granted,  not  expressed. 

The  excessive  airs  which  those  people  give 
themselves,  founded  on  the  ignorance  of  us  un- 
married people,  would  be  more  offensive  if  they 
were  less  irrational.  We  will  allow  them  to  un- 
derstand the  mysteries  belonging  to  their  own 
craft  better  than  we,  who  have  not  had  the  hap- 
piness to  be  made  free  of  the  company  ;  but 
arrogance  is  not  content  within  these  limits.  If 
a  single  person  presume  to  offer  his  opinion  in 
their  presence,  though  upon  the  most  indifferent 
subject,  he  is  immediately  silenced  as  an  incom- 
petent person.  Nay,  a  young  married  lady  of 
my  acquaintance,  who,  the  best  of  the  jest  was, 
had  not  changed  her  condition  above  a  fortnight 
before,  in  a  question  which  I  had  the  misfortune 
to  differ  from  her,  respecting  the  properest  mode 
of  breeding  oysters  for  the  London  market,  had  the 
assurance  to  ask  with  a  sneer,  how  such  an  old 
bachelor  as  I  could  pretend  to  know  any  thing 
about  such  matters  ! 

But  what  I  have  spoken  of  hitherto  is  nothing 
to  the  airs  w^hich  these  creatures  give  themselves 
when  they  come,  as  they  generally  do,  to  have 


22S  B55a^3  ot  :Ella. 

children.  When  I  consider  how  Httle  of  a  rarity 
children  are, — that  every  street  and  blind  alley 
swarms  with  them, — that  the  poorest  people  com- 
monly have  them  in  most  abundance, — that  there 
are  few  marriages  that  are  not  blest  with  at  least 
one  of  these  bargains, — how  often  they  turn  out 
ill,  and  defeat  the  fond  hopes  of  their  parents, 
taking  to  vicious  courses,  which  end  in  poverty, 
disgrace,  the  gallows,  etc., — I  cannot  for  my  life 
tell  what  cause  for  pride  there  can  possibly  be  in 
having  them.  If  they  were  young  phoenixes, 
indeed,  that  were  born  but  one  in  a  year,  there 
might  be  a  pretext.  But  when  they  are  so  com- 
mon  

I  do  not  advert  to  the  insolent  merit  wdiich 
they  assume  with  their  husbands  on  these  occa- 
sions. Let  them  look  to  that.  But  why  we,  who 
are  not  their  natural-born  subjects,  should  be  ex- 
pected to  bring  our  spices,  myrrh,  and  incense, — 
our  tribute  and  homas:e  of  admiration, — I  do  not 
see. 

"  Like  as  the  arrows  in  the  hand  of  the  giant 
even  so  are  the  young  children  '*' ;  so  says  the 
excellent  oftice  in  our  Prayer-Book  appointed  for 
the  churching  of  women.  "Happy  is  the  man 
that  hath  his  quiver  full  of  them  "  ;  so  say  I  ;  but 
then  don't  let  him  discharge  his  quiver  upon  us 
that  are  weaponless  ; — let  them  be  arrows,  but 
not  to  gall  and  stick  us.  I  have  generally  ob- 
served that  these  arrows  are  double-headed  :  they 
have  two  forks,  to  be  sure  to  hit  with  one  or  the 
other.  As  for  instance,  where  you  come  into  a 
house  which  is  full  of  children,  if  you  happen  to 
take  no  notice  of  them  (you  are  thinking  of  some- 
thing else,  perhaps,  and  turn   a  deaf  ear  to  their 


a  :fl3acbelor'6  Gomplaint»  229 

innocent  caresses),  you  are  set  down  as  untract- 
able,  morose,  a  hater  of  children.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  you  find  them  more  than  usually  engag- 
ing,—if  you  are  taken  with  their  pretty  manners, 
and  set  about  in  earnest  to  romp  and  play  with 
them,  some  pretext  or  other  is  sure  to  be  found 
for  sending  them   out  of  the  room  ;  they  are  too 

noisy  or  boisterous,  or  Mr.  does  not  like 

children.  With  one  or  other  of  these  forks  the 
arrow  is  sure  to  hit. 

I  could  forgive  their  jealousy,  and  dispense  with 
toying  with  their  brats,  if  it  gives  them  any  pain  ; 
but  I  think  it  unreasonable  to  be  called  upon  to 
love  them,  where  I  see  no  occasion, — to  love  a 
whole  family,  perhaps,  eight,  nine,  or  ten,  indis- 
criminately,— to  love  all  the  pretty  dears,  because 
children  are  so  engaging  ! 

I  know  there  is  a  proverb,  ''  Love  me,  love  my 
dog  "  ;  that  is  not  always  so  very  practicable,  par- 
ticularly if  the  dog  be  set  upon  you  to  tease  you 
or  snap  at  you  in  sport.  But  a  dog,  or  a  lesser 
thing, — any  inanimate  substance,  as  a  keepsake, 
a  watch  or  a  ring,  a  tree,  or  the  place  where  we 
last  parted  when  my  friend  went  away  upon  a 
long  absence,  I  can  make  a  shift  to  love,  because 
I  love  him,  and  anything  that  reminds  me  of  him  ; 
provided  it  be  in  its  nature  indifferent,  and  apt 
to  receive  whatever  hue  fancy  can  give  it.  /But 
children  have  a  real  character,  and  an  essential 
being  of  themselves  ;  they  are  amiable  or  unami- 
able  per  se  ;  I  must  love  or  hate  them  as  I  see 
cause  for  either  in  their  qualities.  A  child's  nat- 
ure is  too  serious  a  thing  to  admit  of  its  being 
regarded  as  a  mere  appendage  to  another  being, 
and  to  be  loved  or  hated  accordingly  ;  they  stand 


230  J665a^6  ot  JElia* 

with  me  upon  their  own  stock,  as  much  as  men 
and  women  do.  Oh  !  but  you  will  say,  sure  it  is 
an  attractive  age, — there  is  something  in  the 
tender  years  of  infancy  that  of  itself  charms  us? 
That  is  the  very  reason  why  I  am  more  nice  about 
them.  I  know  that  a  sweet  child  is  the  sweetest 
thing  in  nature,  not  even  excepting  the  delicate 
creatures  which  bear  them,  but  the  prettier  the 
kind  of  a  thing  is,  the  more  desirable  it  is  that  it 
should  be  pretty  of  its  kind.  One  daisy  differs 
not  much  from  another  in  glory  ;  but  a  violet 
should  look  and  smell  the  daintiest.  I  was  al- 
ways rather  squeamish  in  my  women  and  chil- 
dren. 

But  this  is  not  the  worst ;  one  must  be  admitted 
into  their  familiarity  at  least,  before  they  can  com- 
plain of  inattention.  It  implies  visits,  and  some 
kind  of  intercourse.  But  if  the  husband  be  a  man 
with  whom  you  have  lived  on  a  friendly  footing 
before  marriage — if  you  did  not  come  in  on  the 
wife's  side — if  you  did  not  sneak  into  the  house  in 
her  train,  but  were  an  old  friend  in  fast  habits  of 
intimacy  before  their  courtship  was  so  much  as 
thought  on, — look  about  you — your  tenure  is  pre- 
carious— before  a  twelvemonth  shall  roll  over 
your  head,  you  shall  tind  your  old  friend  gradually 
grow  cool  cand  altered  towards  you,  and  at  last 
seek  opportunities  of  breaking  with  you.  I  have 
scarce  a  married  friend  of  my  acquaintance,  upon 
whose  firm  faith  I  can  rely,  whose  friendship  did 
not  commence  a/yer  the  period  of  his  tnarriage. 
With  some  limitations,  they  can  endure  that; 
but  that  the  good  man  should  have  dared  to  enter 
into  a  solemn  league  of  friendship  in  which  they 
were  not  consulted,  though  it    happened    before 


H  JSacbeloc's  Complaint.  231 

they  knew  him, — before  they  that  are  now  man 
and  wife  ever  met, — this  is  intolerable  to  them. 
Every  long  friendship,  every  old  authentic  inti- 
macy, must  be  brought  into  their  office  to  be  new 
stamped  with  their  currency,  as  a  sovereign 
prince  calls  in  the  good  old  money  that  was 
coined  in  some  reign  before  he  was  born  or 
thought  of,  to  be  new  marked  and  minted  with 
the  stamp  of  his  authority,  before  he  will  let  it 
pass  current  in  the  world.  You  may  guess  what 
luck  generally  befalls  such  a  rusty  piece  of  metal 
as  I  am  in  these  new  miniings. 

Innumerable  are  the  ways  wdiich  they  take  to 
insult  and  worm  you  out  of  their  husband's  confi- 
dence. Laughing  at  all  you  say  with  a  kind  of 
wonder,  as  if  you  were  a  queer  kind  of  fellow  that 
said  good  things,  hid  an  oddity,  is  one  of  the  ways  ; — 
they  have  a  particular  kind  of  stare  for  the  purpose  ; 
— till  at  last  the  husband,  who  used  to  defer  to  your 
judgment,  and  would  pass  over  some  excrescences 
of  understanding  and  manner  for  the  sake  of  a 
general  vein  of  observation  (not  quite  vulgar) 
which  he  perceived  in  you,  begins  to  suspect 
whether  you  are  not  altogether  a  humorist, — a 
fellow  well  enough  to  have  consorted  with  in  his 
bachelor  days,  but  not  quite  so  proper  to  be  intro- 
duced to  ladies.  This  may  be  called  the  staring 
way  ;  and  is  that  which  has  oftenest  been  put  in 
practice  against  me. 

Then  there  is  the  exaggerating  way,  or  the  way 
of  irony  ;  that  is,  where  they  find  you  an  object 
of  especial  regard  with  their  husband,  who  is  not 
so  easily  to  be  shaken  from  the  lasting  attach- 
ment founded  on  esteem  which  he  has  conceived 
towards  you,  by  never  qualified  exaggerations  to 


232  iBsen^s  of  JElin. 

cry  up  all  that  you  say  or  do,  till  the  good  man, 
who  understands  well  enough  that  it  is  all  done 
in  compliment  to  him,  grows  weary  of  the  debt 
of  gratitude  which  is  due  to  so  much  candor,  and 
by  relaxing  a  little  on  his  part,  and  taking  down 
a  peg  or  two  in  his  enthusiasm,  sinks  at  length  to 
the  kindly  level  of  moderate  esteem — that  ' '  decent 
affection  and  complacent  kindness  "  towards 
you,  where  she  herself  can  join  in  sympathy  with 
him  without  much  stretch  and  violence  to  her 
sincerity. 

Another  way  (for  the  ways  they  have  to  accom- 
plish so  desirable  a  purpose  are  infinite)  is,  with 
a  kind  of  innocent  simplicity,  continually  to  mis- 
take what  it  was  which  first  made  their  husband 
fond  of  you.  If  an  esteem  for  something  excel- 
lent in  your  moral  character  was  that  which  riv- 
eted the  chain  which  she  is  to  break,  upon  any 
imaginary  discovery  of  a  want  of  poignancy  in 
your  conversation,  she  will  cry,    "I  thought,  my 

dear,  you  described  your   friend,    I\Ir.  ,  as 

a  great  wit.'**'  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  for 
some  supposed  charm  in  your  conversation  that 
he  first  grew  to  like  you,  and  was  content  for  this 
to  overlook  some  trifling  irregularities  in  3''our 
moral  deportment,  upon  the  first  notice  of  any  of 
these  she  as  readily  exclaims  :      "This,  my  dear, 

is  your  good  ^Ir.  !  "     One  good  lady  whom 

I  took  the  liberty  of  expostulating  v/ith  for  not 
showing  me  quite  so  much  respect  as  I  thought 
due  to  her  husband's  old  friend,  had  the  candor  to 

confess  to  me  that  she  had  often  heard  I\Ir. 

speak  of  me  before  marriage,  and  that  she  had 
conceived  a  great  desire  to  be  acquainted  with 
me,  but  that  the  sight  of  me  had  very  much  dis- 


B  :fBacbelor'0  Complaint.  233 

appointed  her  expectations  ;  for  from  her  hus- 
band's representations  of  me,  she  had  formed  a 
notion  that  she  was  to  see  a  fine,  tall,  officer-like 
looking-  man  (I  use  her  very  words),  the  very 
reverse  of  which  proved  to  be  the  truth.  This 
was  candid,  and  I  had  the  civility  not  to  ask  her 
in  return,  how  she  came  to  pitch  upon  a  standard 
of  personal  accomplishments  for  her  husband's 
friends  which  differed  so  much  from  his  own ;  for 
my  friend's  dimensions  as  near  as  possible  approx- 
imate to  mine  ;  he  standing  five  feet  five  in  his 
shoes,  in  w^hich  I  have  the  advantage  of  him  by 
about  half  an  inch  ;  and  he  no  more  than  myself 
exhibited  any  indications  of  a  martial  character  in 
his  air  or  countenance. 

These  are  some  of  the  mortifications  which  I 
have  encountered  in  the  absurd  attempt  to  visit  at 
their  houses.  To  enumerate  them  all  would  be  a 
vain  endeavor.  I  shall  therefore  just  glance  at 
the  very  common  impropriety  of  which  married 
ladies  are  guilty, — of  treating  us  as  if  we  were 
their  husbands,  and  vice  versa.  I  mean,  when 
they  use  us  with  familiarity,  and  their  husbands 
with  ceremony.  Testacea,  for  instance,  kept  me 
the  other  night  two  or  three  hours  beyond  my 
usual    time    of   supping,    while  she  was   fretting 

because  Mr.  did  not  come  home  till  the 

oysters  were  all  spoiled  rather  than  she  would  be 
guilty  of  the  impoliteness  of  touching  one  in  his 
absence.  This  was  reversing  the  point  of  good 
manners  ;  for  ceremony  is  an  invention  to  take 
off  the  uneasy  feeling  which  we  derive  from 
knowing  ourselves  to  be  less  the  object  of  love 
and  esteem  with  a  fellow-creature  than  some  other 
person  is.     It  endeavors  to  make  up,  by  superior 


234  iBssn^s  of  Blia. 

attentions  in  little  points,  for  that  invidious  prefer- 
ence which  it  is  forced  to  den}?-  in  the  greater. 
Had  Testacea  kept  the  oysters  back  for  me,  and 
withstood  her  husbands  importunities  to  go  to 
supper,  she  would  have  acted  according  to  the 
strict  rules  of  propriety.  I  know  no  ceremony 
that  ladies  are  bound  to  observe  to  their  husbands, 
beyond  the  point  of  a  modest  behavior  and 
decorum  ;  therefore  I  must  protest  against  the 
vicarious  gluttony  of  Cerasca,  who  at  her  own 
table  sent  away  a  dish  of  IMorellas,  which  I  was 
applying  to  with  great  good-will,  to  her  husband 
at  the  other  end  of  the  table,  and  recommended  a 
plate  of  less  extraordinary  gooseberries  to  my 
unwedded  palate  in  their  stead.     Neither  can  I 

excuse  the  wanton  affront  of 

But  I  am  weary  of  stringing  up  all  my  married 
acquaintance  by  Roman  denominations.  Let 
them  amend  and  change  their  manners,  or  I 
promise  to  record  the  full-length  English  of  their 
names,  to  the  terror  of  all  such  desperate  offenders 
in  future. 


ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS. 


The  casual  sight  of  an  old  playbill,  which  I 
picked  up  the  other  day — I  know  not  by  what 
chance  it  was  preserved  so  long — tempts  me  to 
call  to  mind  a  few  of  the  players  who  make  the 
principal  figure  in  it.  It  presents  the  cast  of  parts 
in  the  "Twelfth  Night"  at  the  old  Drury  Lane 
Theatre  two-and-thirty  years  ago.  There  is  some- 
thing very  touching  in  these  old  remembrances. 
They  make  us  think  how  we  once  used  to  read  a 
playbill, — not,  as  now  peradventure,  singling  out 
a  favorite  performer,  and  casting  a  negligent  eye 
over  the  rest ;  but  spelling  out  every  name,  down 
to  the  very  mutes  and  servants  of  the  scene, — when 
it  was  a  matter  of  no  small  momiCnt  to  us  whether 
Whitfield  or  Packer  took  the  part  of  Fabian  ;  when 
Benson,  and  Burton,  and  Phillimore — names  of 
small  account — had  an  importance  beyond  what 
we  can  be  content  to  attribute  now  to  the  time's 
best  actors.  "Orsino,  by  Mr.  Barrymore."  What 
a  full  Shakespearean  sound  it  carries  !  how  fresh 
to  memory  arise  the  image,  and  the  manner  of 
the  gentle  actor  ! 

Those  who  have  only  seen  Mrs.  Jordan  within 
the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years  can  have  no  adequate 
notion  of  her  performance  of  such  parts  as 
Ophelia;     Helena,    in      "All's     Well    that    Ends 

235 


236  B3sai2s  of  sua. 

Well  "  ;  and  Viola  in  this  play.  Her  voice  had 
latterly  acquired  a  coarseness  which  suited  well 
enough  with  her  Nells  and  Hoydens,  but  in  those 
days  it  sank,  with  her  steady  melting  eye,  into 
the  heart.  Her  joyous  parts — in  which  her 
memory  now  chiefly  lives — in  her  youth  were 
outdone  by  her  plaintive  ones.  There  is  no 
giving  an  account  how  she  delivered  the  disguised 
story  of  her  love  for  Orsino.  It  was  no  set  speech 
that  she  had  foreseen  so  as  to  weave  it  into  an 
harmonious  period,  line  necessarily  following 
line,  to  make  up  the  music — yet  I  have  heard  it 
so  spoken,  or  rather  read,  not  without  its  grace 
and  beauty — but  when  she  had  declared  her 
sister's  history  to  be  a  "blank,"'  and  that  she 
' '  never  told  her  love, "  there  was  a  pause,  as  if  the 
story  had  ended, — and  then  the  image  of  the 
'*  worm  in  the  bud  "  came  up  as  a  new  suggestion, 
— and  the  heightened  image  of  '' Patience '"  still 
followed  after  that  as  by  some  growing  (and  not 
mechanical)  process,  thought  springing  up  after 
thought,  I  would  almost  say,  as  they  were  watered 
by  her  tears.      So  in  those  tine  lines — 

Write  loyal  cantos  of  contemned  love — 
Halloo  your  name  to  the  reverberate  hills — 

there  was  no  preparation  made  in  the  foregoing 
image  for  that  which  was  to  follow.  She  used  no 
rhetoric  in  her  passion,  or  it  was  Nature's  own 
rhetoric,  most  legitimate  then,  when  it  seemed 
altogether  without  rule  or  law. 

INIrs.  Powel  (now  ]\Irs.  Renard),  then  in  the 
pride  of  her  beauty,  made  an  admirable  Olivia. 
She  was  particularly  excellent  in  her   unbending 


On  Some  ot  tbe  ©ID  Victors,  237 

scenes  in  conversation  with  the  Clown.  I  have 
seen  some  Olivias — and  those  very  sensible 
actresses  too — who  in  these  interlocutions  have 
seemed  to  set  their  wits  at  the  jester,  and  to  vie 
conceits  with  him  in  downright  emulation.  But 
she  used  him  for  her  sport  like  what  he  was,  to  trifle 
a  leisure  sentence  or  two  with,  and  then  to  be  dis- 
missed, and  she  to  be  the  Great  Lady  still.  She 
touched  the  imperious  fantastic  humor  of  the 
character  with  nicety.  Her  fine,  spacious  person 
filled  the  scene. 

The  part  of  Malvolio  has,  in  my  judgment, 
been  so  often  misunderstood,  and  the  general 
merits  of  the  actor  who  then  played  it,  so  unduly 
appreciated,  that  I  shall  hope  for  pardon  if  I  am 
a  little  prolix  upon  these  points. 

Of  all  the  actors  who  tiourished  in  my  time — 
a  melancholy  phrase  if  taken  aright,  reader — 
Bensley  had  most  of  the  swell  of  soul,  was  great- 
est in  the  delivery  of  heroic  conceptions,  the  emo- 
tions consequent  upon  the  presentment  of  a  great 
idea  to  the  fancy.  He  had  the  true  poetical 
enthusiasm — the  rarest  faculty  among  players. 
None  that  I  remember  possessed  even  a  portion 
of  that  fine  madness  which  he  threw  out  in  Hot- 
spur's famous  rant  about  glory,  or  the  transports 
of  the  Venetian  incendiary  at  the  vision  of  the 
fired  city.  His  voice  had  the  dissonance,  and  at 
times  the  inspiriting  effect,  of  the  trumpet.  His 
gait  was  uncouth  and  stiff,  but  no  way  embar- 
rassed by  affectation  ;  and  the  thorough-bred 
gentleman  was  uppermost  in  every  movement. 
He  seized  the  moment  of  passion  with  greatest 
truth  ;  like  a  faithful  clock,  never  striking  before 
the  time ;    never  anticipating  or  leading  you  to 


23.8  JBssn^s  of  Blia. 

anticipate.  He  was  totally  destitute  of  trick  and 
artifice.  He  seemed  come  upon  the  stage  to  do 
the  poet's  message  simply,  and  he  did  it  with  as 
genuine  fidelity  as  the  nuncios  in  Homer  deliver 
the  errands  of  the  gods.  He  let  the  passion  or 
the  sentiment  do  its  own  work  without  prop  or 
bolstering.  He  would  have  scorned  to  mounte- 
bank it ;  and  betrayed  none  of  that  cleverness 
which  is  the  bane  of  serious  acting.  For  this 
reason,  his  lago  was  the  only  endurable  one 
which  I  remember  to  have  seen.  No  spectator 
from  his  action  could  divine  more  of  his  artifice 
than  Othello  was  supposed  to  do.  His  confes- 
sions in  soliloquy  alone  put  you  in  possession 
of  the  mystery.  There  were  no  by-intimations 
to  make  the  audience  fancy  their  own  discern- 
ment so  much  greater  than  that  of  the  I\Ioor — 
who  commonly  stands  like  a  great  helpless 
mark  set  up  for  mine  Ancient,  and  a  quantity 
of  barren  spectators,  to  shoot  their  bolts  at. 
The  lago  of  Bensley  did  not  go  to  work  so 
grossly.  There  was  a  triumphant  tone  about 
the  character,  natural  to  a  general  conscious- 
ness of  power;  but  none  of  that  petty  vanity 
which  chuckles  and  cannot  contain  itself  upon 
any  little  successful  stroke  of  its  knavery — as 
is  common  with  your  small  villains  and  green 
probationers  in  mischief.  It  did  not  clap  or 
crow  before  its  time.  It  Avas  not  a  man  setting 
his  wits  at  a  child,  and  winking  all  the  while  at 
other  children  who  are  mightily  pleased  at  be- 
ing let  into  the  secret ;  but  a  consummate  vil- 
lain entrapping  a  noble  nature  into  toils,  against 
which  no  discernment  was  available,  where  the 
manner  was  as  fathomless  as  the  purpose  seemed 


On  Some  ot  the  ©ID  Bctors. 


239 


dark,  and  without  motive.  The  part  of  Malvo- 
lio,  in  the  "Twelfth  Night,"  was  performed  by 
Bensley  with  a  richness  and  a  dignity,  of  which 
(to  judge  from  some  recent  castings  of  that  char- 
acter) the  very  tradition  must  be  worn  out  from 
the  stage.  No  manager  in  those  days  would  have 
dreamed  of  giving  it  to  Mr.  Baddeley,  or  Mr.  Par- 
sons ;  when  Bensley  was  occasionally  absent  from 
the  theatre,  John  Kemble  thought  it  no  derogation 
to  succeed  to  the  part.  Malvolio  is  not  essentially 
ludicrous.  He  becomes  comic  but  by  accident. 
He  is  cold,  austere,  repelling ;  but  dignified,  con- 
sistent, and,  for  what  appears,  rather  of  an  over- 
stretched morality.  Maria  describes  him  as  a  sort 
of  Puritan  ;  and  he  might  have  worn  his  gold 
chain  with  honor  in  one  of  our  old  round-head 
families,  in  the  service  of  a  Lambert  or  a  Lady 
Fairfax.  But  his  morality  and  his  manners  are 
misplaced  in  lUyria.  He  is  opposed  to  the  proper 
levities  of  the  piece,  and  falls  in  the  unequal 
contest.  Still  his  pride,  or  his  gravity  (call  it 
which  you  will),  is  inherent,  and  native  to  the 
man,  not  mock  or  affected,  which  latter  only  are 
the  fit  objects  to  excite  laughter.  His  quality  is 
at  the  best  unlovely,  but  neither  buffoon  nor  con- 
temptible. His  bearing  is  lofty,  a  little  above  his 
station,  but  probably  not  much  above  his  deserts. 
We  see  no  reason  why  he  should  not  have  been 
brave,  honorable,  accomplished.  His  careless 
committal  of  the  ring  to  the  ground  (which  he  was 
commissioned  to  restore  to  Csesario),  bespeaks  a 
generosity  of  birth  and  feeling.  His  dialect  on 
all  occasions  is  that  of  a  gentleman,  and  a  man 
of  education.  We  must  not  confound  him  with 
the  eternal  old,  low  steward  of  comedy.     He  is 


240  }£&sa^s  of  BUa, 

master  of  the  household  to  a  great  prmcess  ;  a 
dignity  probably  conferred  upon  him  for  other  re- 
spects than  age  or  length  of  service.  Olivia,  at 
the  first  indication  of  his  supposed  madness,  de- 
clares that  she  "  would  not  have  him  miscarry  for 
half  of  her  dowry."  Does  this  look  as  if  the  char- 
acter was  meant  to  appear  little  or  insignificant  ? 
Once,  indeed,  she  accuses  him  to  his  face — of 
what  .^ — of  being  "sick  of  self-love"  ; — but  with 
a  gentleness  andconsiderateness  and  which  could 
not  have  been,  if  she  had  not  thought  that  this 
particular  infirmity  shaded  some  virtues.  His 
rebuke  to  the  knight,  and  his  sottish  revellers,  is 
sensible  and  spirited  ;  and  when  we  take  into  con- 
sideration the  unprotected  condition  of  his  mis- 
tress, and  the  strict  regard  with  which  her  state  of 
real  or  dissembled  mourning  would  draw  the  eyes 
of  the  world  upon  her  house  affairs,  Malvolio 
might  feel  the  honor  of  the  family  in  some  sort  in 
his  keeping ;  as  it  appears  not  that  Olivia  had 
any  more  brothers,  or  kinsmen,  to  look  to  it, 
— for  Sir  Toby  had  dropped  all  such  nice  respects 
at  the  buttery-hatch.  That  IMalvolio  was  meant 
to  be  represented  as  possessing  estimable  quali- 
ties, the  expression  of  the  duke,  in  his  anxiety  to 
have  him  reconciled,  almost  infers  :  "  Pursue  him, 
and  entreat  him  to  a  peace."  Even  in  his  abused 
state  of  chains  and  darkness,  a  sort  of  greatness 
seems  never  to  desert  him.  He  argues  highly 
and  well  with  the  supposed  Sir  Topas,  and  phi- 
losophizes   gallantly    upon    his     straw.*     There 

*  Clawn.  What  is  the  opmion  of  Pythagoras  concerning 
wild  fowl  ? 

Mai.  That  the  soul  of  our  grandam  might  haply  inhabit 
a  bird. 


®n  Some  ot  tbe  ©l&  Bctors.  241 

must  have  been  some  shadow  of  worth  about  the 
man  ;  he  must  have  been  something  more  than  a 
mere  vapor — a  thing  of  straw,  or  Jack  in  oflice — 
before  Fabian  and  Maria  could  have  ventured 
sending  him  upon  a  court  errand  to  Olivia.  There 
was  some  consonancy  (as  he  would  say)  in  the 
undertaking,  or  the  jest  would  have  been  too  bold 
even  for  that  house  of  misrule. 

Bensley  accordingly  threw  over  the  part  an  air 
of  Spanish  loftiness.  He  looked,  spake,  and  moved 
like  an  old  Castilian.  He  was  starch,  spruce, 
opinionated,  but  his  superstructure  of  pride  seemed 
bottomed  upon  a  sense  of  worth.  There  was 
something  in  it  beyond  the  coxcomb.  It  was  big 
and  swelling,  but  you  could  not  be  sure  that  it 
was  hollow.  You  might  wish  to  see  it  taken 
down,  but  you  felt  that  it  was  upon  an  elevation. 
He  was  magnificent  from  the  outset ;  but  when 
the  decent  sobrieties  of  the  character  began  to  give 
way,  and  the  position  of  self-love,  in  his  conceit 
of  the  Countess'  affection,  gradually  began  to 
work,  you  would  have  thought  that  the  hero  of 
La  Mancha  in  person  stood  before  you.  How 
he  went  smiling  to  himself !  with  what  ineffable 
carelessness  would  he  twirl  his  gold  chain  !  what 
a  dream  it  was  !  you  were  infected  with  the  illu- 
sion, and  did  not  wish  that  it  should  be  removed  ! 
you  had  no  room  for  laughter  !  if  an  unseasonable 
reflection  of  morality  obtruded  itself,  it  was  a 
deep  sense  of  thepitiable  infirmity  of  man's  nature, 
that  can  lay  him  open  to  such  frenzies, — but  in 
truth  you  rather  admired  than  pitied  the  lunacy 

Clown.     What  thinkest  thou  of  his  opinion  ? 
Mai,     I  think  nobly  of  the  soul,  and   no   way   approve    of 
his  opinion. 


242  jessass  ot  Slia» 

while  it  lasted, — you  felt  that  an  hour  of  such 
mistake  was  worth  an  age  with  the  eyes  open. 
Who  would  not  wish  to  live  but  for  a  day  in  the 
conceit  of  such  a  lady's  love  as  Olivia?  Why, 
the  Duke  would  have  given  his  principality  but 
for  a  quarter  of  a  minute,  sleeping  or  waking,  to 
have  been  so  deluded.  The  man  seemed  to  tread 
upon  air,  to  taste  manna,  to  walk  with  his  head 
in  the  clouds,  to  mate  Hyperion.  O  !  shake  not 
the  castles  of  his  pride, — endure  yet  for  a  season, 
bright  moments  of  confidence,  —  "standstill,  ye 
watches  of  the  element,"  that  IMalvolio  may  be 
still  in  fancy  fair  Olivia's  lord  !  But  fate  and 
retribution  say  no  !  I  hear  the  mischievous 
titter  of  Maria,  the  witty  taunts  of  Sir  Toby,  the 
still  more  insupportable  triumph  of  the  foolish 
knight,  the  counterfeit  SirTopas  is  unmasked,  and 
"thus  the  whirligig  of  time,"  as  the  true  clown 
hath  it,  "brings  in  his  revenges."  I  confess  that 
I  never  saw  the  catastrophe  of  this  character, 
while  Bensley  played  it,  without  a  kind  of  tragic 
interest.  There  was  good  foolery  too.  Few  now 
remember  Dodd.  What  an  Aguecheek  the  stage 
lost  in  him  !  Lovegrove,  who  came  nearest  to  the 
old  actors,  revived  the  character  some  few  seasons 
ago,  and  made  it  sufficiently  grotesque  ;  but  Dodd 
was  //,  as  it  came  out  of  nature's  hands.  It  might 
be  said  to  remain  inpuris  nahiralibiis.  In  express- 
ing slowness  of  apprehension  this  actor  surpassed 
all  others.  You  could  see  the  first  dawn  of  an 
idea  stealing  slowly  over  his  countenance,  climb- 
ing up  by  little  and  little,  with  a  painful  process, 
till  it  cleared  up  at  last  to  the  fulness  of  a  twilight 
conception — its  highest  meridian.  He  seemed  to 
keep  back   his  intellect,  as   some  have  had  the 


®n  Some  ot  tbe  ®l&  Bctors.  243 

power  to  retard  their  pulsation.  The  balloon 
takes  less  time  in  filling  than  it  took  to  cover  the 
expansion  of  his  broad  moony  face  over  all  its 
quarters  with  expression.  A  glimmer  of  under- 
standing would  appear  in  a  corner  of  his  eye,  and 
for  lack  of  fuel  go  out  again.  A  part  of  his  fore- 
head would  catch  a  little  intelligence  and  be  a 
long  time  in  communicating  it  to  the  remainder. 
I  am  ill  at  dates,  but  I  think  it  is  now  better 
than  five-and-twenty  years  ago,  that  walking  in 
the  gardens  of  Gray's  Inn — they  were  then  far 
finer  than  they  are  now — the  accursed  Verulam 
Buildings  had  not  encroached  upon  all  the  east 
side  of  them,  cutting  out  delicate  green  crankles, 
and  shouldering  away  one  of  two  of  the  stately 
alcoves  of  the  terrace, — the  survivor  stands  gap- 
ing and  relationless  as  if  it  remembered  its  brother, 
— they  are  still  the  best  gardens  of  any  of  the  Inns 
of  Court,  my  beloved  Temple  not  forgotten, — have 
the  gravest  character,  their  aspect  being  altogether 
reverend  and  law-breathing, — Bacon  has  left  the 
impress  of  his  foot  upon  their  gravel  walks  ;  tak- 
ing my  afternoon  solace  on  a  summer  day  upon 
the  aforesaid  terrace,  a  comely,  sad  personage 
came  towards  m.e,  whom,  from  his  grave  air  and 
deportment,  I  judged  to  be  one  of  the  old  Benchers 
of  the  Inn.  He  had  a  serious,  thoughtful  fore- 
head, and  seemed  to  be  in  meditations  of  mortality. 
As  I  have  an  instinctive  awe  of  old  Benchers,  I 
was  passing  him  with  that  sort  of  sub-indicative 
token  of  respect  which  one  is  apt  to  demonstrate 
towards  a  venerable  stranger,  and  which  rather  de- 
notes an  inclination  to  greet  him  than  any  positive 
motive  of  the  body  to  that  effect, — a  species  of 
humility  and  will-worship  which  I  observe,  nine 


244  E00ai53  ot  Blia. 

times  out  of  ten,  rather  puzzles  than  pleases  the 
person  it  is  offered  to — when  the  face  turning  full 
upon  me,  strangely  identified  itself  with  that  of 
Dodd.  Upon  close  inspection  I  was  not  mistaken. 
But  could  this  sad,  thoughtful  countenance  be  the 
same  vacant  face  of  folly  which  I  had  hailed  so 
often  under  circumstances  of  gayety  ;  which  I 
had  never  seen  without  a  smile,  or  recognized  but 
as  the  usher  of  mirth  ;  that  looked  out  so  formally 
flat  in  Foppington,  so  frothily  pert  in  Tattle,  so 
impotently  busy  in  Backbite  ;  so  blankly  divested 
of  all  meaning,  or  resolutely  expressive  of  none, 
in  Acres,  in  Fribble,  and  a  thousand  agreeable 
impertinences  ?  Was  this  the  face,  full  of  thought 
and  carefulness,  that  had  so  often  divested  itself 
at  will  of  every  trace  of  either  to  give  me  diversion, 
to  clear  my  cloudy  face  for  two  or  three  hours  at 
least  of  its  furrows  ?  Was  this  the  face — manly, 
sober,  intelligent — which  I  had  so  often  despised, 
made  mocks  at,  made  merry  with  ?,  The  remem- 
brance of  the  freedoms  which  1  had  taken  with 
it  came  upon  me  with  a  reproach  of  insult.  I 
could  have  asked  it  pardon.  I  thought  it  looked 
upon  me  with  a  sense  of  injury.  There  is  some- 
thing strange  as  well  as  sad  in  seeing  actors,  your 
pleasant  fellows  particularly,  subjected  to  and  suf- 
fering the  common  lot ;  their  fortunes,  their  casu- 
alties, their  deaths,  seem  to  belong  to  the  scene, 
their  actions  to  be  amenable  to  poetic  justice  only. 
We  can  hardly  connect  them  with  more  awful 
responsibilities.  The  death  of  this  fine  actor  took 
place  shortly  after  this  meeting.  He  had  quitted 
the  stage  some  months,  and,  as  I  learned  after- 
w^ards,  had  been  in  the  habit  of  resorting  daily  to 
these  gardens  almost  to  the  day  of  his  decease. 


On  Some  ot  tbe  ©ID  Bctovs.  245 

In  these  serious  walks  probably  he  was  divesting 
himself  of  many  scenic  and  some  real  vanities, 
weaning  himself  from  the  frivolities  of  the  lesser 
and  the  greater  theatre,  doing  gentle  penance  for 
a  life  of  no  very  reprehensible  fooleries,  taking  off 
by  degrees  the  buffoon  mask,  which  he  might 
feel  he  had  worn  too  long,  and  rehearsing  for  a 
more  solemn  cast  of  part.  Dying,  he  "put  on 
the  weeds  of  Dominic."  * 

If  few  can  remember  Dodd,  many  yet  living 
will  not  easily  forget  the  pleasant  creature,  who 
in  those  days  enacted  the  part  of  the  Clown  to 
Dodd's  Sir  Andrew.  Richard,  or  rather  Dicky 
Suett, — for  so  in  his  lifetime  he  delighted  to  be 
called,  and  time  hath  ratified  the  appellation, — 
lieth  buried  on  the  north  side  of  the  cemetery  of 
Holy  Paul,  to  whose  service  his  nonage  and  tender 
years  were  dedicated.  There  are  who  do  yet  re- 
member him  at  that  period, — his  pipe  clear  and 
harmonious.  He  would  often  speak  of  his  chor- 
ister days  when  he  was  "  Cherub  Dicky." 

What  clipped  his  wings  or  made  it  expedient 
that  he  should  exchange  the  holy  for  the  profane 
state  ;  whether  he  had  lost  his  good  voice  (his  best 
recommendation    to    that    office),  like   Sir  John, 

*  Dodd  was  a  man  of  reading,  and  left  at  his  death  a  choice 
collection  of  old  English  literature.  I  should  judge  him  to 
have  been  a  man  of  wit.  I  know  one  instance  of  an  impromptu 
which  no  length  of  study  could  have  bettered.  My  merry 
friend,  Jem  White,  had  seen  him  one  evening  in  Aguecheek, 
and  recognizing  Dodd  the  next  day  in  Fleet  Street,  was 
irresistibly  impelled  to  take  off  his  hat  and  salute  him  as  the 
identical  kniglit  of  the  preceding  evening  with  a  "  Save  you, 
Sir  AndreivT  Dodd,  not  at  all  disconcerted  at  this  unusual 
address  from  a  stranger,  with  a  courteous,  half-rebuking  wave 
of  the  hand,  put  him  off  with  an  "  Away,  Fooiy 


246  iBss^^s  ot  BUa. 

"with  hallooing  and  singing  of  anthems ";  of 
whether  he  was  adjudged  to  lack  something,  even 
in  those  early  years,  of  the  gravity  indispensable 
to  an  occupation  which professeth  to  "commerce 
with  the  skies," — I  could  never  rightly  learn  ;  but 
we  find  him,  after  the  probation  of  a  twelvemonth 
or  so,  reverting  to  a  secular  condition,  and  become 
one  of  us. 

I  think  he  was  not  altogether  of  that  timber  out 
of  which  cathedral  seats  and  sounding-boards  are 
hewed.  But  if  a  glad  heart — kind,  and  therefore 
glad — be  any  part  of  sanctity,  then  might  the  robe 
of^Iotley,  with  which  he  invested  himself  with 
so  much  humility  after  his  deprivation,  and  which 
he  wore  so  long  with  so  much  blameless  satisfac- 
tion to  himself  and  to  the  public,  be  accepted  for 
a  surplice, — his  white  stole  and  a/be. 

The  first  fruits  of  his  secularization  was  an 
engagement  upon  the  boards  of  Old  Drury,  at 
which  theatre  he  commenced,  as  I  have  been  told, 
with  adopting  the  manner  of  Parsons  in  old  men's 
characters.  At  the  period  in  which  most  of  us 
knew  him,  he  was  no  more  an  imitator  then  he 
was  in  any  true  sense  himself  imitable. 

He  was  the  Robin  Goodfellow  of  the  stage. 
He  came  in  to  trouble  all  things  with  a  welcome 
perplexity,  himself  no  whit  troubled  for  the  matter. 
He  was  known,  like  Puck,  by  his  note, — Ha/  Ha! 
Ha  !  sometimes  deepening  to  Ho  I  Ho  !  Ho  !  with 
an  irresistible  accession,  derived,  perhaps,  re- 
motely from  his  ecclesiastical  education,  foreign 
to  his  prototype  of  O  La  !  Thousands  of  hearts  yet 
respond  to  the  chuckling  O  La  !  oi  Dicky  Suett, 
brought  back  to  their  remembrance  by  the  faithful 
transcript  of  his  friend  ^lathew's  mimicry.     The 


Qn  Some  of  the  01^  actors,  247 

**  force  of  nature  could  no  further  go."  He  drolled 
upon  the  stock  of  these  two  syllables  richer  than, 
the  cuckoo. 

Care,  that  troubles  all  the  world,  was  forgotten  in 
his  composition.  Had  he  had  but  two  grains  (nay, 
half  a  grain)  of  it,  he  could  never  have  supported 
himself  upon  those  two  spider's  strings,  which 
served  him  (in  the  latter  part  of  his  unmixed 
existence)  as  legs.  A  doubt  or  a  scruple  must 
have  made  him  totter,  a  sigh  have  puffed  him 
down ;  the  weight  of  a  frown  had  staggered  him, 
a  wrinkle  made  him  lose  his  balance.  But  on 
he  went,  scrambling  upon  those  airy  stilts  of 
his,  w^ith  Robin  Goodfellow,  "  through  brake, 
through  briar,"  reckless  of  a  scratched  face  or  a 
torn  doublet. 

Shakespeare  foresaw  him  when  he  framed  his 
fools  and  jesters.  They  have  all  the  true  Suett 
stamp,  a  loose  and  shambling  gait,  a  slippery 
tongue,  this  last  the  ready  midwife  to  a  without- 
pain-delivered  jest  ;  in  v/ords,  light  as  air,  venting 
truths  deep  as  the  centre ;  with  idlest  rhymes 
tagging  conceit  when  busiest,  singing  with  Lear 
in  the  tempest,  or  Sir  Toby  at  the  buttery- 
hatch. 

Jack  Bannister  and  he  had  the  fortune  to  be 
more  of  personal  favorites  with  the  tow^n  than  any 
actors  before  or  after.  The  ditTerence,  I  take  it, 
was  this  :  Jack  was  more  beloved  for  his  sweet, 
good-natured,  moral  pretensions.  Dicky  w^as 
more  liked  for  his  sweet,  good-natured,  no  preten- 
sions at  alL  Your  whole  conscience  stirred  with 
Bannister's  performance  of  Walter  in  the  **  Chil- 
dren in  the  Wood"  ;  but  Dicky  seemed  like  a  thing 
of  Love,  as  Shakespeare  says,  too  young  to  know 


248  B53a^5  ot  :i£lia. 

what  conscience  is.  He  put  us  into  Vesta's  days. 
Evil  fled  before  him, — not  as  from  Jack,  as  from 
an  antagonist, — but  because  it  could  not  touch 
him  any  more  than  a  cannon-ball  a  fly.  He  was 
delivered  from  the  burden  of  that  death,  and  when 
death  came  himself,  not  in  metaphor,  to  fetch 
Dicky,  it  is  recorded  of  him  by  Robert  Palmer, 
who  kindly  watched  his  exit,  that  he  received  the 
last  stroke,  neither  varying  his  accustomed  tran- 
quillity, nor  tune,  with  the  simple  exclamation, 
worthy  to  have  been  recorded  in  his  epitaph, — 
O  La!  0  La  !    Bobby  ! 

The  elder  Palmer  (of  stage-treading  celebrity) 
commonly  played  Sir  Toby  in  those  days  ;  but  there 
is  a  solidity  of  wit  in  the  jests  of  that  half-Falstaff 
which  he  did  not  quite  fill  out.  He  was  as  much 
too  showy  as  Moody  (who  sometimes  took  the 
part)  was  dry  and  sottish.  In  sock  or  buskin 
there  was  an  air  of  swaggering  gentility  about 
Jack  Palmer.  He  was  a  gentleman  with  a  slight 
infusion  of  the  footinan.  His  brother  Bob  (of 
recent  memory),  who  was  his  shadow  in  every- 
thing while  he  lived,  and  dwindled  into  less  than 
a  shadow  afterwards,  was  ^genf.lei?ian  with  a  little 
stronger  infusion  of  the  latter  mgredtent;  that  was 
all.  It  is  amazing  how  a  little  of  the  more  or  less 
makes  a  difference  in  these  things.  When  you 
saw  Bobby  in  the  Duke's  Servant  *  you  said  : 
''What  a  pity  such  a  pretty  fellow  was  only  a 
servant  !  "  When  you  saw  Jack  figuring  in  Cap- 
tain Absolute  you  thought  you  could  trace  his 
promotion  to  some  lady  of  quality  who  fancied  the 
handsome  fellow  in  his  topknot,  and  had  bought 

*  "  Hitrh  Life  Below  Stairs." 


®n  Some  ot  tbe  Q\^  Bctors. 


249 


him  a  commission.     Therefore,  Jack  in  Dick  Am- 
let  was  insuperable. 

Jack  had  two  voices,  both  plausible,  hypocrit- 
ical, and  insinuating  :  but  his  secondary  or  sup- 
plemental voice  still  more  decisively  histrionic 
than  his  common  one.  It  was  reserved  for  the 
spectator  ;  and  the  drainatis  personcB  were  sup- 
posed to  know  nothing  at  all  about  it.  The  lies 
of  Young  Wilding,  and  the  sentiments  in  Joseph 
Surface,  were  thus  marked  out  in  a  sort  of  italics 
to  the  audience.  This  secret  correspondence 
with  the  company  before  the  curtain  (which  is 
the  bane  and  death  of  tragedy)  has  an  extremely 
happy  effect  in  some  kinds  of  comedy,  in  the 
more  highly  artificial  comedy,  of  Congreve  or  of 
Sheridan  especially,  where  the  absolute  sense  of 
reality  (so  indispensable  to  scenes  of  interest)  is 
not  required,  or  would  rather  interfere  to  diminish 
your  pleasure.  The  fact  is,  you  do  not  believe 
in  such  characters  as  Surface, — the  villain  of  arti- 
ficial comedy, — even  while  you  read  or  see 
them.  If  you  did,  they  would  shock  and  not 
divert  you.  When  Ben,  in  "Love  for  Love," 
returns  from  sea,  the  following  exquisite  dialogue 
occurs  at  his  first  meeting  with  his  father  : 

^/>  Sampson.  Thou  hast  been  many  a  weary  league,  Ben, 
since  I  saw  thee. 

Ben.  Ey,  ey,  been  !  Been  far  enough,  an'  that  be  all. — 
Well,  father,  and  how  do  all  at  home  ?  how  does  brother 
Dick,  and  brother  Val  t 

Sir  Sampson.  Dick !  body  o'  me,  Dick  has  been  dead 
these  two  years.     I  writ  you  word  when  you  were  at  Leghorn. 

Ben.  Mess,  that's  true ;  Marry,  I  had  forgot.  Dick's 
dead,  as  you  say, — well,  and  how  ? — I  have  a  many  questions 
to  ask  you. 

Here  is  an   instance  of  insensibility  which  in 


250  iBss^^B  of  JElia, 

real  life  would  be  revolting,  or  rather  in  real  life 
could  not  have  coexisted  with  the  warm-hearted 
temperament  of  the  character.  But  when  you 
read  it  in  the  spirit  with  which  such  playful  selec- 
tions and  specious  comxbinations  rather  than  strict 
metaphrases  of  nature  should  be  taken,  or  when 
you  saw  Bannister  play  it,  it  neither  did,  nor 
does,  wound  the  moral  sense  at  all.  For  what  is 
Ben — the  pleasant  sailor  which  Bannister  gives 
us — but  a  piece  of  satire, — a  creation  of  Con- 
greve's  fancy, — a  dreamy  combination  of  all  the 
accidents  of  a  sailor's  character, — his  contempt 
of  money, — his  credulity  to  women, — with  that 
necessary  estrangement  from  home  which  it  is 
just  within  the  verge  of  credibility  to  suppose 
inight  produce  such  an  hallucination  as  is  here 
described.  We  never  think  the  worse  of  Ben  for 
it,  or  feel  it  as  a  stain  upon  his  character.  But 
when  an  actor  comes,  and  instead  of  the  delight- 
ful phantom — the  creature  dear  to  half-belief — • 
which  Bannister  exhibited, — displays  before  our 
eyes  a  downright  concretion  of  a  Wapping  sailor 
■ — a  jolly  warm-hearted  Jack  Tar — and  nothing 
else — when,  instead  of  investing  it  with  a  delicious 
confusedness  of  the  head,  and  a  veering  undi- 
rected goodness  of  purpose, — he  gives  to  it  a 
downright  daylight  understanding,  and  a  full 
consciousness  of  its  actions  ;  thrusting  forward 
the  sensibilities  of  the  character  with  a  pretence 
as  if  it  stood  upon  nothing  else,  and  was  to  be 
judged  by  them  alone, — we  feel  the  discord  of  the 
thing  ;  the  scene  is  disturbed  ;  a  real  man  has 
got  in  among  the  dramatis  personce,  and  puts 
them  out.  We  want  the  sailor  turned  out.  We 
feel  that  his  true  place  is  not  behind  the  curtain, 
but  in  the  first  or  second  gallery. 


ON  THE  ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  THE 
LAST  CENTURY. 


The  artificial  comedy,  or  comedy  of  manners, 
is  quite  extinct  on  our  stage.  Congreve  and  Far- 
quhar  show  their  heads  once  in  seven  years  only, 
to  be  exploded  and  put  down  instantly.  The 
times  cannot  bear  them.  Is  it  for  a  few  wild 
speeches,  an  occasional  license  of  dialogue?  I 
think  not  altogether.  The  business  of  their  dra- 
matic characters  will  not  stand  the  moral  test. 
We  screw  every  thing  up  to  that.  Idle  gallantry 
in  a  fiction,  a  dream,  the  passing  pageant  of  an 
evening,  startles  us  in  the  same  way  as  the 
alarming  indications  of  profligacy  in  a  son  or 
ward  in  real  life  should  startle  the  parent  or 
guardian.  We  have  no  such  middle  emotions  as 
dramatic  interests  left.  We  see  a  stage  libertine 
playing  his  loose  pranks  of  two  hours'  duration, 
and  of  no  after  consequence,  with  the  severe  eyes 
which  inspect  real  vices  with  their  bearings  upon 
two  worlds.  We  are  spectators  to  a  plot  or  in- 
trigue (not  reducible  in  life  to  the  point  of  strict 
morality),  and  take  it  all  for  truth.  We  substi- 
tute a  real  for  a  dramatic  person,  and  judge  him 
accordingly.  We  try  him  in  our  courts,  from 
which  there  is  no  appeal  to  the  dramatis  personce, 
his  peers.  We  have  been  spoiled  with — not  sen- 
timental comedy — but  a  tyrant  far  more  perni- 

251 


252  Bssaiss  ot  JSlia. 

cioiis  to  our  pleasures  which  has  succeeded  to  it, 
the  exclusive  and  all-devouring  drama  of  common 
life ;  where  the  moral  point  is  every  thing  ; 
where,  instead  of  the  fictitious  half-believed  per- 
sonages of  the  stage  (the  phantoms  of  old 
comedy),  we  recognize  ourselves,  our  brothers, 
aunts,  kinsfolk,  allies,  patrons,  enemies, — the 
same  as  in  life, — with  an  interest  in  what  is  going 
on  so  hearty  and  substantial,  that  we  cannot 
afford  our  moral  judgment,  in  its  deepest  and 
most  vital  results,  to  compromise  or  slumber  for 
a  moment.  What  is  there  transacting,  by  no 
modification  is  made  to  affect  us  in  any  other 
manner  than  the  same  events  or  characters  would 
do  in  our  relationships  of  life.  We  carry  our  fire- 
side concerns  to  the  theatre  with  us.  We  do  not 
go  thither,  like  our  ancestor,  to  escape  from  the 
pressure  of  reality,  so  much  as  to  confirm  our  ex- 
perience of  it  ;  to  make  assurance  double,  and 
take  a  bond  of  fate.  We  must  live  our  toilsome 
lives  twice  over,  as  it  was  the  mournful  privilege 
of  Ulysses  to  descend  twice  to  the  shades.  All 
that  neutral  ground  of  character  which  stood 
between  vice  and  virtue  ;  or  which  in  fact  was  in- 
different to  neither,  where  neither  properly  was 
called  in  question  ;  that  happy  breathing-place 
from  the  burden  of  a  perpetual  moral  questioning 
— the  sanctuary  and  quiet  Alsatia  of  hunted 
casuistry — is  broken  up  and  disfranchised,  as  in- 
jurious to  the  interests  of  society.  The  privileges 
of  the  place  are  taken  away  by  law.  We  dare  not 
dally  with  images,  or  names,  of  wrong.  We 
bark  like  foolish  dogs  at  shadows.  We  dread  in- 
fection from  the  scenic  representation  of  disorder, 
and  fear  a  painted   pustule.      In   our  anxiety  that 


artificial  ComeOis  of  tbe  Xast  Geutur^.    253 

our  morality  should  not  take  cold,  we  wrap  it  up 
in  a  great  blanket  surtout  of  precaution  against 
the  breeze  and  sunshine. 

I  confess  for  myself  that  (with  no  great  delin- 
quencies to  answer  for)  I  am  glad  for  a  season  to 
take  an  airing  beyond  the  diocese  of  the  strict 
conscience, — not  to  live  always  in  the  precincts 
of  the  law-courts,  but  now  and  then,  for  a  dream- 
while  or  so,  to  imagine  a  world  with  no  meddling 
restrictions — to  get  into  recesses,  whither  the 
hunter  cannot  follow  me — 

Secret  shades 
Of  woody  Ida's  inmost  grove, 
While  yet  there  was  no  fear  of  Jove. 

I  come  back  to  my  cage  and  my  restraint  the 
fresher  and  more  healthy  for  it.  I  wear  my 
shackles  more  contentedly  for  having  respired 
the  breath  of  an  imaginary  freedom.  I  do  not 
know  how  it  is  with  others,  but  I  feel  the  better 
always  for  the  perusal  of  one  of  Congreve's — 
nay,  why  should  I  not  add  even  of  Wycherley's 
comedies.  I  am  the  gayer  at  least  for  it ;  and 
I  could  never  connect  those  sports  of  a  witty 
fancy  in  any  shape  with  any  result  to  be  drawn 
from  them  to  imitation  in  real  life.  They  are  a 
world  of  themselves  almost  as  much  as  fairy-land. 
Take  one  of  their  characters,  male  or  female 
(with  few  exceptions  they  are  alike),  and  place  it 
in  a  modern  play,  and  my  virtuous  indignation 
shall  rise  against  the  profligate  wretch  as  warmly 
as  the  Catos  of  the  pit  could  desire  ;  because  in 
a  modern  play  I  am  to  judge  the  right  and  the 
wrong.  The  standard  oi police  is  the  measure  of 
political  justice.     The  atmosphere  v/ill  blight  it ;  it 


254  JSssti^s  of  ;!£lla. 

cannot  live  here.  It  has  got  into  a  moral  world, 
where  it  has  no  business,  from  which  it  must 
needs  fall  headlong- ;  as  dizzy,  and  incapable  of 
making  a  stand,  as  a  Swedenborgian  bad  spirit 
that  has  wandered  unawares  into  the  sphere  of 
one  of  his  Good  Men,  or  Angels.  But  in  its  own 
w^orld  do  we  feel  the  creature  is  so  bad  ?  The 
Fainalls  and  the  jMirabells,  the  Dorimants  and 
the  Lady  Touchwoods,  in  their  own  sphere,  do 
not  offend  my  moral  sense ;  in  fact  they  do  not 
appeal  to  it  at  all.  They  seem  engaged  in  their 
proper  element.  They  break  through  no  laws  or 
conscientious  restraints.  They  know  of  none. 
They  have  got  out  of  Christendom  into  the  land — 
what  shall  I  call  it  ? — of  cuckoldry — the  Utopia 
of  gallantry,  where  pleasure  is  duty,  and  manners 
perfect  freedom.  It  is  altogether  a  speculative 
scene  of  things,  which  has  no  reference  whatever 
to  the  world  that  is.  No  good  person  can  be  justly 
offended  as  a  spectator,  because  no  good  person 
suffers  on  the  stage.  Judged  morally,  every 
character  in  these  plays — the  few  exceptions  only 
are  mistakes — is  alike  essentially  vain  and  worth- 
less. The  great  art  of  Congreve  is  especially 
shown  in  this,  that  he  has  entirely  excluded  from 
his  scenes,  some  little  generosities  on  the  part  of 
Angelica  perhaps  excepted,  not  only  any  thing 
like  a  faultless  character,  but  any  pretensions  to 
goodness  or  good  feelings  whatsoever.  Whether 
he  did  this  designedly  or  instinctively,  the  effect 
is  as  happy  as  the  design  (if  design)  is  bold.  I 
used  to  wonder  at  the  strange  power  which  his 
"  Way  of  the  World  "  in  particular  possesses  of 
interesting  you  all  along  in  the  pursuits  of  charac- 
ters for  whom  you  absolutely  care  nothing — for 


Artificial  ComeDg  of  tbe  Xast  Centurg,    255 

you  neither  hate  nor  love  his  personages — and  I 
think  it  is  owing  to  this  very  indifference  for  any 
that  you  endure  the  whole.  He  has  spread  a 
privation  of  moral  light,  I  will  call  it,  rather 
than  by  the  ugly  name  of  palpable  darkness,  over 
his  creations  ;  and  his  shadows  flit  before  you 
without  distinction  or  preference.  Had  he  intro- 
duced a  good  character,  a  single  gush  of  moral 
feeling,  a  revulsion  of  the  judgment  to  actual 
life  and  actual  duties,  the  impertinent  Goshen 
would  have  only  lighted  to  the  discovery  of  de- 
formities, which  now  are  none,  because  we  think 
them  none. 

Translated  into  real  life,  the  characters  of  his 
and  his  friend  Wycherley's  dramas,  are  profligates 
and  strumpets, — the  business  of  their  brief  exist- 
ence, the  individual  pursuit  of  lawless  gallantry. 
No  other  spring  of  action,  or  possible  motive  of 
conduct,  is  recognized  ;  principles  which,  univer- 
sally acted  upon,  must  reduce  this  frame  of  things 
to  a  chaos.  But  we  do  them  wrong  in  so  trans- 
lating them.  No  such  effects  are  produced  in 
their  world.  When  we  are  among  them,  w^e  are 
amongst  a  chaotic  people.  We  are  not  to  judge 
them  by  our  usages.  No  reverend  institutions 
are  insulted  by  their  proceedings — for  they  have 
none  among  them.  No  peace  of  families  is  vio- 
lated— for  no  family  ties  exist  among  them.  No 
purity  of  the  marriage  bed  is  stained — for  none  is 
supposed  to  have  a  being.  No  deep  affections 
are  disquieted,  no  holy  wedlock  bands  are 
snapped  asunder — for  affection's  depth  and  wedded 
faith  are  not  of  the  growth  of  that  soil.  There  is 
neither  right  nor  wrong, — gratitude  or  its  opposite, 
• — claim  or  duty, — paternity  or  sonship.     Of  what 


256  JEbq^^b  ot  jeiia. 

consequence  is  it  to  Virtue,  or  how  is  she  at  all 
concerned  about  it,  whether  Sir  Simon  or  Dapper- 
wit,  steal  away  IVIiss  Martha  ;  or  who  is  the 
father  of  Lord  Froth's  or  Sir  Paul  Pliant's  chil- 
dren. 

The  whole  thing  is  a  passing  pageant,  where 
we  should  sit  as  unconcerned  at  the  issues,  for 
life  or  death,  as  at  a  battle  of  the  frogs  and  mice. 
But,  like  Don  Quixote,  we  take  part  against  the 
puppets,  and  quite  as  impertinently.  We  dare 
not  contemplate  an  Atlantis,  a  scheme,  out  of 
which  our  coxcombical  moral  sense  is  for  a  little 
transitory  ease  excluded.  We  have  not  the  cour- 
age to  imagine  a  state  of  things  for  which  there 
is  neither  reward  nor  punishment.  We  cling  to 
the  painful  necessities  of  shame  and  blame.  We 
would  indict  our  very  dreams. 

Amidst  the  mortifying  circumstances  attendant 
upon  growing  old,  it  is  something  to  have  seen 
the  ''School  for  Scandal"  in  its  glory.  This 
comedy  grew  out  of  Congreve  and  Wycherley,  but 
gathered  some  allays  of  the  sentimental  comedy 
which  followed  theirs.  It  is  impossible  that  it 
should  be  now  ac/ed,  though  it  continues,  at  long 
intervals,  to  be  announced  in  the  bills.  Its  hero, 
when  Palmer  played  it  at  least,  was  Joseph  Sur- 
face. When  I  remember  the  gay  boldness,  the 
graceful,  solemn  plausibility,  the  measured  step, 
the  insinuating  voice, — to  express  it  in  a  word — 
the  downright  ac/ed  villainy  of  the  part,  so  differ- 
ent from  the  pressure  of  conscious  actual  wicked- 
ness,— the  hypocritical  assumption  of  hypocrisy, 
— which  made  Jack  so  deservedly  a  favorite  in  that 
character,  I  must  needs  conclude  the  present  gen- 
eration of  play-goers  more  virtuous  than  myself, 


Artificial  ComeO^  of  tbe  Xast  Centuri^.    257 

or  more  dense.  I  freely  confess  that  he  divided 
the  palm  with  me  with  his  better  brother  ;  that, 
in  fact,  I  liked  him  quite  as  well.  Not  but  there 
are  passages, — like  that,  for  instance,  where 
Joseph  is  made  to  refuse  a  pittance  to  a  poor  rela- 
tion,— incongruities  which  Sheridan  was  forced 
upon  by  the  attempt  to  join  the  artificial  with  the 
sentimental  comedy,  either  of  which  must  destroy 
the  other, — but  over  these  obstructions  Jack's 
manner  floated  him  so  lightly,  that  a  refusal  for 
him  no  more  shocked  you,  than  the  easy  compli- 
ance of  Charles  gave  you  in  reality  any  pleasure  ; 
you  got  over  the  paltry  question  as  quickly  as 
you  could,  to  get  back  into  the  regions  of  pure 
comedy,  where  no  cold  moral  reigns.  The  highly 
artificial  manner  of  Palmer  in  this  character  coun- 
teracted every  disagreeable  impression  which  you 
might  have  received  from  the  contrast,  supposing 
them  real,  between  the  two  brothers.  You  did 
not  believe  in  Joseph  with  the  same  faith  with 
which  you  believed  in  Charles.  The  latter  was  a 
pleasant  reality,  the  former  a  no  less  pleasant  poet- 
ical foil  to  it.  The  comedy,  I  have  said,  is  incon- 
gruous ;  a  mixture  of  Congreve  with  sentimental 
incompatibilities  ;  the  gayety  upon  the  whole  is 
buoyant,  but  it  required  the  consummate  art  of 
Palmer  to  reconcile  the  discordant  elements. 

A  player  with  Jack's  talents,  if  we  had  one  now, 
would  not  dare  do  the  part  in  the  same  man- 
ner. He  would  instinctively  avoid  every  turn 
which  might  tend  to  unrealize,  and  so  to  make 
the  character  fascinating.  He  must  take  his  cue 
from  his  spectators,  who  would  expect  a  bad  man 
and  a  good  man  as  rigidly  opposed  to  each  other 
as  the  death-beds  of  those  geniuses  are  contrasted 
17 


258  iBeea^B  of  JEUa. 

in  the  prints,  which  I  am  sorry  to  say  have  disap- 
peared from  the  windows  of  my  old  friend  Car- 
rington  Bowles,  of  St.  Paul's  Churchyard  mem- 
ory,— (an  exhibition  as  venerable  as  the  adjacent 
cathedral,  and  almost  coeval)  of  the  bad  and  good 
man  at  the  hour  of  death ;  where  the  ghastly  ap- 
prehensions of  the  former, — and  truly  the  grim 
phantom  with  his  reality  of  a  toasting-fork  is  not 
to  be  despised, — so  finely  contrast  with  the  meek 
complacent  kissing  of  the  rod, — taking  it  in  like 
honey  and  butter, — with  which  the  latter  submits 
to  the  scythe  of  the  gentle  bleeder,  Time,  who 
wields  his  lancet  with  the  apprehensive  finger  of 
a  popular  young  ladies'  surgeon.  What  flesh, 
like  loving  grass,  would  not  covet  to  meet  half- 
way the  stroke  of  such  a  delicate  mower?  John 
Palmer  was  twice  an  actor  in  this  exquisite  part. 
He  was  playing  to  you  all  the  while  that  he  was 
playing  upon  Sir  Peter  and  his  lady.  You  had 
the  first  intimation  of  a  sentiment  before  it  was 
on  his  lips.  His  altered  voice  was  meant  to  you, 
and  you  were  to  suppose  that  his  fictitious  co- 
fiutterers  on  the  stage  perceived  nothing  at  all  of 
it.  What  was  it  to  you  if  that  half  reality,  the 
husband,  was  overreached  by  the  puppetry — or 
the  thin  thing  (Lady  Teazle's  reputation)  was 
persuaded  it  was  dying  of  a  plethory  ?  The  fort- 
unes of  Othello  and  Desdemona  were  not  con- 
cerned in  it.  Poor  Jack  has  passed  from  the 
stage  in  good  time,  that  he  did  not  live  tp  this  our 
age  of  seriousness.  The  pleasant  old  Teazle 
King^  too.  is  gone  in  good  time.  His  manner 
would  scarce  have  passed  current  in  our  day.  We 
must  love  or  hate, — acquit  or  condemn, — censure 
or  pity, — exert  our  detestable  coxcombry  of  moral 


Brtlficial  Comc&t!  ot  tbc  Xast  Centurij.    259 

judgment  upon  every  thing.  Joseph  Surface,  to 
go  down  now,  must  be  a  downright  revolting 
villain, — no  compromise — his  first  appearance 
must  shock  and  give  horror, — his  specious  plausi- 
bilities, which  the  pleasurable  faculties  of  our 
fathers  welcomed  with  such  hearty  greetings, 
knowing  that  no  harm  (dramatic  harm  even)  could 
come,  or  was  meant  to  come,  of  them,  must 
inspire  a  cold  and  killing  aversion.  Charles  (the 
real  canting  person  of  the  scene, — for  the  hypoc- 
risy of  Joseph  has  its  ulterior  legitimate  ends,  but 
his  brother's  professions  of  a  good  heart  centre  in 
downright  self-satisfaction)  must  be  loved,  and 
Joseph  hated.  To  balance  one  disagreeable  reality 
with  another.  Sir  Peter  Teazle  must  be  no  longer 
the  comic  idea  of  a  fretful  old  bachelor  bridegroom, 
whose  teasings  (while  King  acted  it)  were  evi- 
dently as  much  played  off  at  you,  as  they  were 
meant  to  concern  anybody  on  the  stage, — he 
must  be  a  real  person,  capable  in  law  of  sustain- 
ing an  injury, — a  person  towards  whom  duties 
are  to  be  acknowledged, — the  genuine  crim.  con. 
antagonist  of  the  villainous  seducer  Joseph.  To 
realize  him  more,  his  sufferings  under  his  unfort- 
unate match  must  have  the  downright  pungency 
of  life, — must  (or  should)  make  you  not  mirthful 
but  uncomfortable,  just  as  the  same  predicament 
w^ould  move  you  in  a  neighbor  or  old  friend.  The 
delicious  scenes  which  give  the  play  its  name  and 
zest,  must  affect  you  in  the  same  serious  manner 
as  if  you  heard  the  reputation  of  a  dear  female 
friend  attacked  in  your  real  presence.  Crabtree 
and  Sir  Benjamin — those  poor  snakes  that  live  but 
in  the  sunshine  of  your  mirth — must  be  ripened 
by  this  hot-bed  process  of  realization  into  &sp.s  or 


26o  je^Bags  of  :eua. 

amphisbaenas  ;  and  Mrs.  Candour — Oh  !  fright- 
ful ! — become  a  hooded  serpent.  Oh  !  who  that 
remembers  Parsons  and  Dodd, — the  wasp  and 
butterfly  of  the  "School  for  Scandal, " — in  those 
two  characters ;  the  charming  and  natural  INIiss 
Pope,  the  perfect  gentlewoman,  as  distinguished 
from  the  fine  lady  of  comedy,  in  this  latter  part, 
— would  forego  the  true  scenic  delight, — the 
escape  from  life, — the  oblivion  of  consequences, 
— the  holiday  barring  out  of  the  pedant  Reflec- 
tion,— those  Saturnalia  of  two  or  three  brief  hours, 
well  w^on  from  the  world, — to  sit  instead  at  one 
of  our  modern  plays, — to  have  his  coward  con- 
science (that  forsooth  must  not  be  left  for  a 
moment)  stimulated  with  perpetual  appeals, — 
dulled  rather,  and  blunted,  as  a  faculty  without 
repose  must  be, — and  his  moral  vanity  pampered 
with  images  of  notional  justice,  notional  benefi- 
cence, lives  saved  without  the  spectator's  risk, 
and  fortunes  given  away  that  cost  the  author 
nothing.? 

No  piece  was,  perhaps,  ever  so  completely  cast 
in  all  its  parts  as  this  manager  s  comedy.  Miss 
Farren  had  succeeded  to  Mrs.  Abington  in  Lady 
Teazle  ;  and  Smith,  the  original  Charles,  had  re- 
tired when  I  first  saw  it.  The  rest  of  the  charac- 
ters, with  very  slight  exceptions,  remained.  I 
remember  it  was  then  the  fashion  to  cry  down 
John  Kemble,  who  took  the  part  of  Charles,  after 
Smith ;  but,  I  thought,  very  unjustly.  Smith,  I 
fancy,  was  more  airy,  and  took  the  eye  with  a 
certain  gayety  of  person.  He  brought  with  him 
no  sombre  recollections  of  tragedy.  He  had  not 
to  expiate  the  fault  of  having  pleased  beforehand 
in  lofty  declamation.      He  had  no  sins  of  Hamlet 


Brttficfal  ComeDg  ot  tbe  Xa6t  Century.    261 

or  of  Richard  to  atone  for.  His  failure  in  these 
parts  was  a  passport  to  success  in  one  of  so  oppo- 
site a  tendency.  But,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  the 
weighty  sense  of  Kemble  made  up  for  more  per- 
sonal incapacity  than  he  had  to  answer  for.  His 
harshest  tones  in  this  part  came  steeped  and  dul- 
cified in  good-humor.  He  made  his  defects  a 
grace.  His  exact  declamatory  manner,  as  he 
managed  it,  only  served  to  convey  the  points  of 
his  dialogue  with  more  precision.  It  seemed  to 
head  the  shafts  to  carry  them  deeper.  Not  one 
of  his  sparkling  sentences  was  lost.  I  remember 
minutely  how  he  delivered  each  in  succession, 
and  cannot  by  any  effort  imagine  how  any  of 
them  could  be  altered  for  the  better.  No  man 
could  deliver  brilliant  dialogue, — the  dialogue  of 
Congreve  or  of  Wycherley — because  none  under- 
stood it, — half  so  well  as  John  Kemble.  His  Val- 
entine, in  ''Love  for  Love,"  was,  to  my  recollec- 
tion, faultless.  He  flagged  sometimes  in  the 
intervals  of  tragic  passion.  He  would  slumber 
over  the  level  parts  of  an  heroic  character.  His 
Macbeth  has  been  known  to  nod.  But  he  always 
seemed  to  me  to  be  particularly  alive  to  pointed 
and  witty  dialogue.  The  relaxing  levities  of  trag- 
edy have  not  been  touched  by  any  since  him, — 
the  playful  court-bred  spirit  in  which  he  conde- 
scended to  the  players  in  Hamlet, — the  sportive 
relief  which  he  threw  into  the  darker  shades  of 
Richard, — disappeared  with  him.  He  had  his 
sluggish  moods,  his  torpors, — but  they  were  the 
halting-stones  and  resting-place  of  his  tragedy, — 
politic  savings  and  fetches  of  the  breath, — hus- 
bandry of  the  lungs,  where  nature  pointed  him  to 
be  an  economist, — rather,  I  think,  than  errors  of 


262  MBsats  Of  Blia. 

judgrnent  They  were,  at  worst,  less  painful 
than  the  eternal  tormenting  unappeasable  vigi- 
lance,— the  "lidless  dragon  eyes," — of  present 
fashionable  tragedy. 


ON  THE  ACTING  OF  MUNDEN. 


Not  many  nights  ago  I  had  come  home  from 
seeing  this  extraordinary  performer  in  ' '  Cockle- 
top  "  ;  and  when  I  retired  to  my  pillow  his  whim- 
sical image  still  stuck  by  me,  in  a  manner  as  to 
threaten  sleep.  In  vain  I  tned  to  divest  myself 
of  it  by  conjuring  up  the  most  opposite  asso- 
ciations. I  resolved  to  be  serious.  I  raised  up 
the  gravest  topics  of  life  :  private  misery,  public 
calamity.     All  would  not  do  : 

There  the  antic  sate 
Mocking  our  state — 

his  queer  visnomy — his  bewildering  costume — all 
the  strange  things  which  he  had  raked  together, 
■ — his  serpentine  rod,  swaggering  about  in  his 
pocket, — Cleopatra's  tear,  and  the  rest  of  his 
relics, — O'Keefe's  wild  farce,  and /ws  wilder  com- 
mentary,— till  the  passion  of  laught-er,  like  grief 
in  excess,  r-elieved  itself  by  its  own  weight,  invit- 
ing the  sleep  which  in  th-e  first  instance  it  had 
driven  away. 

But  I  was  not  to  escape  so  easily.  No  sooner 
did  I  fall  into  slumber  than  the  same  image,  only 
more  perplexing,  assailed  me  in  the  shape  of 
dreams.  Not  one  Munden,  but  five  hundred, 
were   dancing  before  me,  like  the   faces  which, 

263 


264  Bs6a^5  ot  JEUa. 

whether  you  will  or  no,  come  when  you  have 
been  taking  opium, — all  the  strange  combinations, 
which  this  strangest  of  all  strange  mortals  ever 
shot  his  proper  countenance  into,  from  the  day  he 
came  commissioned  to  dry  up  the  tears  of  the 
town  for  the  loss  of  the  now  almost  forgotten 
Edwin.  O  for  the  power  of  the  pencil  to  have 
fixed  them  when  I  awoke  I  A  season  or  two 
since  there  was  exhibited  a  Hogarth  gallery.  I 
do  not  see  why  there  should  not  be  a  Munden 
gallery.  In  richness  and  variety  the  latter  would 
not  fall  far  short  of  the  former. 

There  is  one  face  of  Farley,  one  face  of  Knight, 
one  (but  what  a  one  it  is  !)  of  Liston  ;  but  Mun- 
den has  none  that  you  can  properly  pin  down, 
and  call  liis.  When  you  think  he  has  exhausted 
his  battery  of  looks,  in  unaccountable  warfare 
with  your  gravity,  suddenly  he  sprouts  out  an 
entirely  new  set  of  features  like  Hydra.  He  is 
not  one,  but  legion  ;  not  so  much  a  comedian,  as 
a  company.  If  his  name  could  be  multiplied  like 
his  countenance  it  might  fill  a  playbill.  He,  and 
he  alone,  literally  makes  faces  ;  applied  to  any 
other  person  the  phrase  is  a  mere  figure,  denoting 
certain  modifications  of  the  human  countenance. 
Out  of  some  invisible  wardrobe  he  dips  for  faces, 
as  his  friend  Suettused  for  wigs,  and  fetches  them 
out  as  easily.  I  should  not  be  surprised  to  see 
him  some  day  put  out  the  head  of  a  river-horse  ; 
or  come  forth  a  pewit,  or  lapv/ing,  some  feathered 
metamorphosis. 

I  have  seen  this  gifted  actor  in  Sir  Christopher 
Curry — in  old  "  Dornton  " — diffuse  a  glow  of  sen- 
timent which  has  made  the  pulse  of  a  crowded 
theatre  beat  like  that  of  one  man  :  when  he  has 


®n  tbe  Beting  of  ^unDen.  265 

come  in  aid  of  the  pulpit,  doing  good  to  the  moral 
heart  of  a  people.  I  have  seen  some  faint 
approaches  to  this  sort  of  excellence  in  other 
players.  But  in  the  grand  grotesque  of  farce 
Munden  stands  out  as  single  and  unaccompanied 
as  Hogarth.  Hogarth,  strange  to  tell,  had  no 
followers.  The  school  of  Munden  began,  and 
must  end,  with  himself. 

Can  any  man  wonder,  like  him  }  Can  any  man 
see  ghosts  like  him  .?  ox  fight  with  his  own  shadow 
— "  SESSA" — as  he  does  in  that  strangely-neglect- 
ed thing,  the  "Cobbler  of  Preston" — where  the 
alternations  from  the  Cobbler  to  the  Magnifico, 
and  from  the  Magnifico  to  the  Cobbler,  keep  the 
brain  of  the  spectator  in  as  wild  a  ferment,  as  if 
some  Arabian  Night  were  being  acted  before  him  .? 
Who  like  him  can  throw,  or  ever  attempted  to 
throw,  a  preternatural  interest  over  the  com- 
monest daily-life  objects  .?  A  table  or  a  joint- 
stool,  in  his  conception,  rises  into  a  dignity  equiv- 
alent to  Cassiopeia's  chair.  It  is  invested  with 
constellatory  importance.  You  could  not  speak 
of  it  with  more  deference,  if  it  were  mounted  into 
the  firmament.  The  beggar  in  the  hands  of 
Michael  Angelo,  says  Fuseli,  rose  the  Patriarch  of 
Poverty.  So  the  gusto  of  IMunden  antiquates  and 
ennobles  what  it  touches.  His  pots  and  his 
ladles  are  as  grand  and  primal,  as  the  seething 
pots  and  hooks  seen  in  old  prophetic  vision.  A 
tub  of  butter,  contemplated  by  him,  amounts  to 
a  Platonic  idea.  He  understands  a  leg  of  mutton 
in  its  quiddity.  He  stands  wondering,  amid  the 
commonplace  material  of  life,  like  primeval  man 
with  the  sun  and  stars  about  him. 


THE  LAST  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 


THE  LAST  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 


PREFACE. 

BY  A  FRIEND  OF  THE  LATE  ELIA. 


This  poor  gentleman,  who  for  some  months 
past  has  been  in  declining  way,  hath  at  length 
paid  his  final  tribute  to  nature. 

To  say  truth,  it  is  time  he  were  gone.  The 
humor  of  the  thing,  if  ever  there  were  much  in  it, 
was  pretty  well  exhausted  ;  and  a  two  years'  and 
a  half  existence  has  been  a  tolerable  duration  for 
a  phantom. 

I  am  now  at  liberty  to  confess,  that  much 
which  I  have  heard  objected  to  my  late  friend's 
writings  was  well  founded.  Crude  they  are,  I 
grant  you — a  sort  of  unlicked  incondite  things — 
villainously  pranked  in  an  affected  array  of  antique 
modes  and  phrases.  They  had  not  been  his,  if 
they  had  been  other  than  such  ;  and  better  it  is, 
that  a  writer  should  be  natural  in  a  self-pleasing 
quaintness,  than  to  affect  a  naturalness  (so  called) 
that  should  be  strange  to  him.  Egotistical 
they  have  been  pronounced  by  some  who  did 
not  know,  that  what  he  tells  us,   as  of  himself, 

269 


270  jBsen^B  of  JEUa. 

was  often  true  only  (historically)  of  another ;  as 
in  a  former  Essay  (to  sav^e  many  instances) — 
where  under  the  Jirsf  person  (his  favorite  figure) 
he  shadows  forth  the  forlorn  estate  of  a  country 
boy  placed  at  a  London  school,  far  from  his 
friends  and  connections, — in  direct  opposition 
to  his  own  early  history.  If  it  be  egotism  to 
imply  and  twine  with  his  own  identity  the  griefs 
and  affections  of  another — making  himself  many, 
or  reducing  many  unto  himself,  then  is  the  skilful 
novelist,  who  all  along  brings  in  his  hero  or  hero- 
ine, speaking  of  themselves,  the  greatest  egotist  of 
all  ;  who  yet  has  never,  therefore,  been  accused 
of  that  narrowness.  And  how  shall  the  intenser 
dramatist  escape  being  faulty,  who  doubtless, 
under  cover  of  passion  uttered  by  another,  often- 
times gives  blameless  vent  to  his  most  inward 
feelings,  and  expresses  his  own  story  modestly  ? 

My  late  friend  was  in  many  respects  a  singular 
character.  Those  who  did  not  like  him,  hated 
him  ;  and  some,  who  once  liked  him,  afterwards 
became  his  bitterest  haters.  The  truth  is,  he 
gave  himself  too  little  concern  what  he  uttered, 
and  in  whose  presence.  He  observed  neither 
time  nor  place,  and  would  e'en  out  with  what 
came  uppermost.  With  the  severe  religionist 
he  would  pass  for  a  free-thinker  ;  while  the  other 
faction  set  him  down  for  a  bigot,  or  persuaded 
themselves  that  he  belied  his  sentiments.  Few 
understood  him  ;  and  I  am  not  certain  that  at  all 
times  he  quite  understood  himself.  He  too  much 
affected  that  dangerous  figure — irony.  He  sowed 
doubtful  speeches,  and  reaped  plain,  unequivocal 
hatred.  He  would  interrupt  the  gravest  discus- 
sion  with  some  light  jest ;  and  yet,  perhaps,   not 


preface.  271 

quite  irrelevant  in  ears  that  could  understand  it. 
Your  long  and  much  talkers  hated  him.  The 
informal  habit  of  his  mind,  joined  to  an  invet- 
erate impediment  of  speech,  forbade  him  to  be 
an  orator  ;  and  he  seemed  determined  that  no  one 
else  should  play  that  part  when  he  was  present. 
He  was  petit  and  ordinary  in  person  and  appear- 
ance. I  have  seen  him  sometimes  in  what  is 
called  good  company,  but  where  he  has  been  a 
stranger,  sit  silent,  and  be  suspected  for  an  odd 
fellow  ;  till  some  unlucky  occasion  provoking  it, 
he  would  stutter  out  some  senseless  pun  (not 
altogether  senseless  perhaps,  if  rightly  taken), 
which  has  stamped  his  character  for  the  evening. 
It  was  hit  or  miss  with  him  ;  but  nine  times  out 
of  ten,  he  contrived  by  this  device  to  send  away 
a  whole  company  his  enemies.  His  conception 
rose  kindlier  than  his  utterance,  and  his  happiest 
impromptus  had  the  appearance  of  effort.  He 
has  been  accused  of  trying  to  be  witty,  when  in 
truth  he  was  but  struggling  to  give  his  poor 
thoughts  articulation.  He  chose  his  companions 
for  some  individuality  of  character  which  they 
manifested.  Hence,  not  many  persons  of  science 
and  few  professed  literati,  were  of  his  councils. 
They  were,  for  the  most  part,  persons  of  uncer- 
tain fortune  ;  and,  as  to  such  people  commonly 
nothing  is  more  obnoxious  than  a  gentleman  of 
settled  (though  moderate)  income,  he  passed  with 
most  of  them  for  a  great  miser.  To  my  knowl- 
edge this  was  a  mistake.  His  intimados,  to  con- 
fess a  truth,  were  in  the  world's  eye  a  ragged- 
regiment.  He  found  them  floating  on  the 
surface  of  society  :  and  the  color,  or  something 
else,  in  the  weed  pleased  him.     The  burrs  stuck 


272  jEssa^s  of  lEKa. 

to  him — but  they  were  good  and  loving  burrs  for 
all  that.  He  nev^er  greatly  cared  for  the  society 
of  what  are  called  good  people.  If  any  of  these 
were  scandalized  (and  offences  were  sure  to 
arise),  he  could  not  help  it.  When  he  had  been 
remonstrated  with  for  not  making  more  conces- 
sions to  the  feelings  of  good  people,  he  would 
retort  by  asking,  what  one  point  did  these  good 
people  ever  concede  to  him.?  He  was  temper- 
ate in  meals  and  diversions,  but  always  kept  a 
little  on  this  side  of  abstemiousness.  Only  in  the 
use  of  the  Indian  weed  he  might  be  thought  a 
little  excessive.  He  took  it,  he  would  say,  as  a 
solvent  of  speech.  Marry — as  the  friendly  vapor 
ascended,  how  his  prattle  would  curl  up  some- 
times with  it .''  the  ligaments  which  tongue-tied 
him  were  loosened,  and  the  stammerer  proceeded 
a  statist  ! 

I  do  not  know  whether  I  ought  to  bemoan  or 
rejoice  that  my  old  friend  is  departed.  His  jests 
were  beginning  to  grow  obsolete,  and  his  stories 
to  be  found  out.  He  felt  the  approaches  of  age; 
and  while  he  pretended  to  cling  to  life,  you  saw 
how  slender  were  the  ties  left  to  bind  him.  Dis- 
coursing with  him  latterly  on  this  subject,  he  ex- 
pressed himself  with  apettishness  which  I  thought 
unworthy  of  him.  In  our  walks  about  his  sub- 
urban retreat  (as  he  called  it)  at  Shackle  well,  some 
children  belonging  to  a  school  of  industry  had 
met  us,  and  bowed  and  curtseyed,  as  he  thought, 
in  an  especial  manner  to  him.  "They  take  me 
for  a  visiting  governor,"  he  muttered  earnestly. 
He  had  a  horror,  which  he  carried  to  a  foible,  of 
looking  like  any  thing  important  and  parochial. 
He   thought  that  he  approached  nearer  to  that 


preface.  273 

stamp  daily.  He  had  a  general  aversion  from 
being  treated  like  a  grave  or  respectable  character, 
and  kept  a  wary  eye  upon  the  advances  of  age 
that  should  so  entitle  him.  He  herded  always, 
while  it  was  possible,  with  people  younger  than 
himself.  He  did  not  conform  to  the  march  of 
time,  but  was  dragged  along  in  the  procession. 
His  manners  lagged  behind  his  years.  He  was 
too  much  of  the  boy-man.  The  toga  virilis  never 
sat  gracefully  on  his  shoulders.  The  impressions 
of  infancy  had  burnt  into  him,  and  he  resented 
the  impertinence  of  manhood.  These  were  weak- 
nesses ;  but  such  as  they  were,  they  are  a  key  to 
explicate  some  of  his  writings. 

18 


BLAKESMOOR   IN   H SHIRE." 


I  DO  not  know  a  pleasure  more  affecting"  than 
to  range  at  will  over  the  deserted  apartments  of 
some  fine  old  family  mansion.  The  traces  of 
extinct  grandeur  admit  of  a  better  passion  than 
envy  ;  and  contemplations  on  the  great  and  good, 
whom  we  fancy  in  succession  to  have  been  its 
inhabitants,  weave  for  us  illusions  incompatible 
with  the  bustle  of  modern  occupancy,  and  vani- 
ties of  foolish  present  aristocracy.  The  same 
difference  of  feeling,  I  think,  attends  us  between 
entering  an  empty  and  a  crowded  church.  In  the 
latter  it  is  chance  but  some  present  human  frailty, 
an  act  of  inattention  on  the  part  of  some  of  the 
auditory,  or  a  trait  of  affectation,  or  worse,  vain- 
glory on  that  of  the  preacher  puts  us  by  our  best 
thoughts,  disharmonizing  the  place  and  the  occa- 
sion. But  wouldst  thou  know  the  beauty  of 
holiness  ?  Go  alone  on  some  week-day,  borrow- 
ing the  keys  of  good  Master  Sexton,  traverse  the 
cool  aisles  of  some  country  church  ;  think  of  the 
piety  that  has  kneeled  there  ;  the  congregations, 
old  and  young,  that  have  found  consolation  there, 
the  meek  pastor,  the  docile  parishioner.  With  no 
disturbing  emotions,  no  cross-conflicting  compar- 
isons, drink,  in  the  tranquillity  of  the  place,  till 
thou  thyself  become  as  fixed  and  motionless  as 

275 


276  £603^3  Of  SKa. 

the  marble  effigies  that  kneel  and  weep  around 
thee. 

Journeying  northward  lately,  I  could  not  resist 
going  some  few  miles  out  of  my  road  to  look 
upon  the  remains  of  an  old  great  house,  with 
which  I  had  been  impressed  in  this  way  in  in- 
fancy. I  was  apprised  that  the  owner  of  it  had 
lately  pulled  it  down  ;  still  I  had  a  vague  notion 
that  it  could  not  all  have  perished,  that  so  much 
solidity  with  magnificence  could  not  have  been 
crushed  all  at  once  into  the  mere  dust  and  rubbish 
which  I  found  it. 

The  work  of  ruin  had  proceeded  with  a  swift 
hand,  indeed,  and  the  demolition  of  a  few  weeks 
had  reduced  it  to — an  antiquity. 

I  was  astonished  at  the  indistinction  of  every 
thing.  Where  had  stood  the  great  gates?  What 
bounded  the  courtyard.''  Whereabouts  did  the 
outhouses  commence?  A  few  bricks  only  lay  as 
representatives  of  that  which  was  so  stately  and 
so  spacious. 

Death  does  not  shrink  up  his  human  victim 
at  this  rate.  The  burnt  ashes  of  a  man  weigh 
more  in  their  proportion. 

Had  I  seen  these  brick-and-mortar  knaves  at 
their  process  of  destruction,  at  the  plucking  of 
every  panel  I  should  have  felt  the  varlets  at  my 
heart.  I  should  have  cried  out  to  them  to  spare 
a  plank  at  least  out  of  the  cheerful  storeroom,  in 
whose  hot  window-seat  I  used  to  sit  and  read 
Cowley,  with  the  grass-plot  before,  and  the  hum 
and  flappings  of  that  one  solitary  wasp  that  ever 
haunted  it  about  me, — it  is  in  mine  ears  now,  as 
oft  as  summer  returns  ;  or  a  panel  of  the  yellow- 
room. 


asiaftesmooc  in  1b — sbire*  277 

Why,  every  plank  and  panel  of  that  house  for 
me  had  magic  in  it.  The  tapestried  bedrooms, — 
tapestry  so  much  better  than  painting;  not  adorn- 
ing merely,  but  peopling  the  wainscots, — at  which 
childhood  ever  and  anon  would  steal  a  look,  shift- 
ing its  coverlid  (replaced  as  quickly)  to  exercise 
its  tender  courage  in  a  momentary  eye-encounter 
with  those  stern  bright  visages,  staring  recipro- 
cally,— all  Ovid  on  the  walls,  in  colors  vivider 
than  his  descriptions.  Actseon  in  mid  sprout, 
with  the  unappeasable  prudery  of  Diana  ;  and 
the  still  more  provoking,  and  almost  culinary 
coolness  of  Dan  Phoebus,  eel-fashion,  deliberately 
divesting  of  Marsyas. 

Then,  that  haunted  room — in  which  old  Mrs. 
Battle  died, — whereinto  I  have  crept,  but  always 
in  the  daytime,  with  a  passion  of  fear  ;  and  a 
sneaking  curiosity,  terror-tainted,  to  hold  com- 
munication with  the  past.  How  shall  they  build 
it  up  again  P 

It  was  an  old  deserted  place,  yet  not  so  long 
deserted  but  that  traces  of  the  splendor  of  past 
inmates  were  everywhere  apparent.  Its  furniture 
was  still  standing — even  to  the  tarnished  gilt 
leather  battledores,  and  crumbling  feathers  of 
shuttlecocks  in  the  nursery,  which  told  that 
children  had  once  played  there.  But  I  was  a 
lonely  child,  and  had  the  range  at  will  of  every 
apartment,  knew  every  nook  and  corner,  wondered 
and  worshiped  everywhere. 

The  solitude  of  childhood  is  not  so  much  the 
mother  of  thought,  as  it  is  the  feeder  of  love,  and 
silence,  and  admiration.  So  strange  a  passion 
for  the  place  possessed  me  in  those  years,  that, 
though  there  lay — I  shame  to  say  how  few  roods 


278  Essags  of  iSlla. 

distant  from  the  mansion — half  hid  by  trees,  what 
I  judged  some  romantic  lake,  such  was  the  spell 
which  bound  me  to  the  house,  and  such  my  care- 
fulness not  to  pass  its  strict  and  proper  precincts, 
that  the  idle  waters  lay  unexplored  for  me  ;  and 
not  till  late  in  life,  curiosity  prevailing  over  elder 
devotion,  I  found,  to  my  astonishment,  a  pretty 
brawling  brook  had  been  the  Lacus  Incognitus  of 
my  infancy.  Variegated  views,  extensive  pros- 
pects,— and  those  at  no  great  distance  from  the 
house, — I  was  told  of  such — what  were  they  to 
me,  being  out  of  the  boundaries  of  my  Eden  ?  So 
far  from  a  wish  to  roam,  I  would  have  drawn, 
methought,  still  closer  the  fences  of  my  chosen 
prison  ;  and  have  been  hemmed  in  by  a  yet 
securer  cincture  of  those  excluding  garden  walls. 
I  could  have  exclaimed  with  that  garden-loving 
poet — 

Bind  me,  ye  woodbines,  in  your  twines  ; 
Curl  me  about,  ye  gadding  vines  ; 
And  oh  !  so  close  your  circles  lace, 
That  I  may  never  leave  this  place  ; 
But,  lest  your  fetters  prove  too  weak, 
Ere  I  your  silken  bondage  break, 
Do  you,  O  brambles,  chain  me  too, 
And,  courteous  briars,  nail  me  through  ! 

I  was  here  as  in  a  lonely  temple.  Snug  fire- 
sides, the  low-built  roof,  parlors  ten  feet  by  ten, 
frugal  boards,  and  all  the  homeliness  of  home, 
— these  were  the  condition  of  my  birth,  the  whole- 
some soil  which  I  was  planted  in.  Yet,  without 
impeachment  to  their  tenderest  lessons,  I  am  not 
sorry  to  have  had  glances  of  some  thing  beyond  ; 
and  to  have  taken,  if  but  a  peep,  in  childhood,  at 
the  contrasting  accidents  of  a  great  fortune. 


:fBla??e0mc»ot  in  1b— sbire.  279 

To  have  the  feeling  of  gentility,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  have  been  born  gentle.  The  pride  of  an- 
cestry may  be  had  on  cheaper  terms  than  to  be 
obliged  to  an  importunate  race  of  ancestors  ;  and 
the  coatless  antiquary  in  his  unemblazoned  cell, 
revolving  the  long  line  of  a  Mowbray's  or  De 
Clifford's  pedigree,  at  those  sounding  names  may 
warm  himself  into  as  gay  a  vanity  as  these  who 
do  inherit  them.  The  claims  of  birth  are  ideal 
merely,  and  what  herald  shall  go  about  to  strip 
me  of  an  idea  ?  Is  it  trenchant  to  their  swords  ? 
can  it  be  hacked  off  as  a  spur  can,  or  torn  away 
like  a  tarnished  garter  ? 

What  else  were  the  families  of  the  great  to  us  ? 
what  pleasure  should  we  take  in  their  tedious 
genealogies,  or  their  capitulatory  brass  monu- 
ments? What  to  us  the  uninterrupted  current 
of  their  bloods,  if  our  own  did  not  answer  within 
us  to  a  cognate  and  correspondent  elevation  ? 

Or  wherefore  else,  O  tattered  and  diminished 
'scutcheon  that  hung  upon  the  time-worn  walls 
of  thy  princely  stairs,  Blakesmoor  !  have  I  in 
childhood  so  oft  stood  poring  upon  the  mystic 
characters, — thy  emblematic  supporters,  with 
their  prophetic  ''Resurgam," — till,  every  dreg  of 
peasantry  purging  off,  I  received  into  myself  Very 
Gentility  ?  Thou  wert  first  in  my  morning  eyes  ; 
and  of  nights  hast  detained  my  steps  from  bed- 
ward,  till  it  was  but  a  step  from  gazing  at  thee  to 
dreaming  on  thee. 

This  is  the  only  true  gentry  by  adoption  ;  the 
veritable  change  of  blood,  and  not,  as  empirics 
have  fabled,  by  transfusion. 

Who  it  was  by  dying  that  had  earned  the 
splendid  trophy  I  know  not,  I  inquired  not  ;  but 


28o  iBseti^s  ot  sua. 

its  fading  rags,  and  colors  cobweb-stained,  told 
that  its  subjects  was  of  two  centuries  back. 

And  Avhat  if  my  ancestor  at  that  date  was  some 
Damoetas, — feeding  flocks — not  his  own,  upon 
the  hills  of  Lincoln, — did  I  in  less  earnest  vindi- 
cate to  myself  the  family  trappings  of  this  once 
proud  ^gon  ?  repaying  by  a  backward  triumph 
the  insults  he  might  possibly  have  heaped  in  his 
lifetime  upon  my  poor  pastoral  progenitor. 

If  it  were  presumption  so  to  speculate,  the 
present  owners  of  the  mansion  had  least  reason 
to  complain.  They  had  long  forsaken  the  old 
house  of  their  fathers  for  a  newer  trifle  ;  and  I  was 
left  to  appropriate  to  myself  what  images  I  could 
pick  up,  to  raise  my  fancy,  or  to  sooth  my  vanity. 

I  was  the  true  descendant  of  those  old  W s  ; 

and  not  the  present  family  of  that  name,  who  had 
fled  the  old  waste  places. 

Mine  was  that  gallery  of  good  old  family  por- 
traits, which  as  I  have  gone  over,  giving  them  in 
fancy  my  own  family  name, — one  and  then 
another — would  seem  to  smile,  reaching  forward 
from  the  canvas  to  recognize  the  new  relation- 
ship ;  while  the  rest  looked  grave,  as  it  seemed,  at 
the  vacancy  in  their  dwelling,  and  thoughts  of 
fled  posterity. 

That  Beauty  with  the  cool  blue  pastoral  dra- 
pery, and  a  lamb — that  hung   next  the  great  bay 

window — with  the  bright  yellow  H shire  hair, 

and  eyes  of  watchet  hue — so  like  my  Alice  ! — I 
am  persuaded  she  was  a  true  Elia, — Mildred 
Elia,  I  take  it. 

IMine,  too,  Blakesmoor,  was  thy  noble  marble 
hall  with  its  mosaic  pavements  and  its  twelve 
Caesars, — stately  busts  in  marble, — ranged  round  ; 


3Bla?;e6moor  in  lb — abtre,  281 

of  whose  countenances,  young  reader  of  faces  as 
I  was,  the  frowning  beauty  of  Nero,  I  remember, 
had  most  of  my  wonder  ;  but  the  mild  Galba  had 
my  love.  There  they  stood  in  the  coldness  of 
death,  yet  freshness  of  immortality. 

Mine,  too,  thy  lofty  justice  hall,  with  its  one 
chair  of  authority,  high-backed  and  wickered, 
once  the  terror  of  luckless  poacher,  or  self-for- 
getful maiden — so  common  since  that  bats  have 
roosted  in  it. 

Mine,  too, — whose  else.? — thy  costly  fruit- 
garden,  with  its  sun-baked  southern  wall  ;  the 
ampler  pleasure  garden,  rising  backwards  from 
the  house  in  triple  terraces,  with  flower-pots  now 
of  palest  lead,  save  that  a  speck  here  and  there, 
saved  from  the  elements,  bespake  their  pristine 
state  to  have  been  gilt  and  glittering  ;  the  verdant 
quarters  backwarder  still  ;  and,  stretching  still 
beyond,  in  old  formality,  thy  firry  wilderness,  the 
haunt  of  the  squirrel,  and  the  day-long  murmur- 
ing wood-pigeon,  with  that  antique  image  in  the 
centre,  god  or  goddess  I  wist  not  ;  but  child  of 
Athens  or  old  Rome  paid  never  a  sincerer  wor- 
ship to  Pan  or  to  Sylvanus  in  their  native  groves 
than  I  to  that  fragmental  mystery. 

Was  it  for  this  that  I  kissed  my  childish  hands 
too  fervently  in  your  idol-worship,  walks  and 
windings  of  Blakesmoor  !  for  this,  or  what  sin  of 
mine,  has  the  plough  passed  over  your  pleasant 
places  ?  I  sometimes  think  that  as  men,  when 
they  die,  do  not  die  at  all,  so  of  their  extinguished 
habitations,  there  may  be  a  hope — a  germ  to  be 
revivified. 


POOR  RELATIONS. 


A  POOR  relation  is  the  most  irrelevant  thing  in 
nature, — a  piece  of  impertinent  correspondency, 
— an  odious  approximation, — a  haunting  con- 
science, a  preposterous  shadow,  lengthening  in 
the  noontide  of  our  prosperity, — an  unwelcome 
remembrancer, — a  perpetually  recurring  mortifi- 
cation,— a  drain  on  your  purse,  a  more  intol- 
erable dun  upon  your  pride, — a  drawback  upon 
success, — a  rebuke  to  your  rising, — a  stain  in 
your  blood, — a  blot  on  your  'scutcheon, — a  rent 
in  your  garment, — death's  head  at  your  ban- 
quet,— Agathocles'  pot, — a  Mordecai  in  your  gate, 
— a  Lazarus  at  your  door, — a  lion  in  your  path, 
— a  frog  in  your  chamber, — a  fly  in  your  oint- 
ment,— a  mote  in  your  eye, — a  triumph  to  your 
enemy, — an  apology  to  your  friends, — the  one 
thing  not  needful, — the  hail  in  harvest, — the  ounce 
of  sour  in  a  pound  of  sweet. 

He  is  known  by  his  knock.  Your  heart  telleth 
you  "That  is  Mr. ."  A  rap,  between  famil- 
iarity and  respect  ;  that  demands,  and  at  the 
same  time  seems  to  despair  of,  entertainment. 
He  entereth  smiling  and — embarrassed.  He  hold- 
eth  out  his  hand  to  you  to  shake,  and — draweth 
it  back  again.  He  casually  looketh  in  about 
dinner-time — when  the  table  is  full.  He  offereth 
282 


IPooc  IRelations*  283 

to  go  away,  seeing  you  have  company, — but  is 
induced  to  stay.  He  filleth  a  chair,  and  your 
visitors  two  children  are  accommodated  at  a  side 
table.  He  never  cometh  upon  open  days,  when 
your  wife  says   with  some    complacency,    ''My 

dear,    perhaps  Mr.  will    drop  in    to-day." 

He  remembereth  birthdays, — and  professeth  he 
is  fortunate  to  have  stumbled  upon  one.  He 
declareth  against  fish,  the  turbot  being  small — 
yet  suffereth  himself  to  be  importuned  into  a  slice, 
against  his  first  resolution.  He  sticketh  by  the 
port, — yet  will  be  prevailed  upon  to  empty  the 
remainder  glass  of  claret,  if  a  stranger  press  it 
upon  him.  He  is  a  puzzle  to  the  servants,  who 
are  feal-ful  of  being  too  obsequious,  or  not  civil 
enough,  to  him,  The  guests  think  "they  have 
seen  him  before."  Every  one  speculateth  upon 
his  condition  ;  and  the  most  part  take  him  to  be 
— a  tide-waiter.  He  calleth  you  by  your  Christian 
name,  to  imply  that  his  other  is  the  same  with 
your  own.  He  is  too  familiar  by  half,  yet  you 
wish  he  had  less  diffidence.  With  half  the  famil- 
iarity, he  might  pass  for  a  casual  dependant  ; 
with  more  boldness,  he  would  be  in  no  danger  of 
being  taken  for  what  he  is.  He  is  too  humble 
for  a  friend  ;  yet  taketh  on  him  more  state  than 
befits  a  client.  He  is  a  worst  guest  than  a  coun- 
try tenant,  inasmuch  as  he  bringeth  up  no  rent — 
yet  *t  is  odds,  from  his  garb  and  demeanor,  that 
your  guests  take  him  for  one.  He  is  asked  to 
make  one  at  the  whist-table ;  refuseth  on  the 
score  of  poverty,  and — resents  being  left  out. 
When  the  company  break  up,  he  profi'ereth  to  go 
for  a  coach — and  lets  the  servant  go.  He  recol- 
lects your  grandfather ;  and  will  thrust  in  some 


284  iBsea^e  of  jeua* 

mean  and  quite  unimportant  anecdote — of  the 
family.  He  knew  it  when  it  was  not  quite  so 
flourishing  as  "he  is  blest  in  seeing  it  now.''  He 
reviveth  past  situations,  to  institute  what  he  call- 
eth — favorable  comparisons.  With  a  reflecting 
sort  of  congratulation,  he  will  inquire  the  price  of 
your  furniture  ;  and  insults  you  with  a  special 
commendation  of  your  window-curtains.  He  is 
of  opinion  that  the  urn  is  the  more  elegant  shape, 
but,  after  all,  there  was  something  more  comfort- 
able about  the  old  tea-kettle, — which  you  must 
remember.  He  dare  say  you  must  find  a  great 
convenience  in  having  a  carriage  of  your  own, 
and  appealeth  to  your  lady  if  it  is  not  so.  In- 
quireth  if  you  had  your  arms  done  on  Vellum 
yet ;  and  did  not  know,  till  lately,  that  such-and- 
such  had  been  the  crest  of  the  family.  His  mem- 
ory is  unseasonable ;  his  compliments  perverse  ; 
his  talk  a  trouble  ;  his  stay  pertinacious  ;  and 
when  he  goeth  away,  you  dismiss  his  chair  into 
a  corner,  as  precipitately  as  possible,  and  feel 
fairly  rid  of  two  nuisances. 

There  is  a  worse  evil  under  the  sun,  and  that 
is — a  female  Poor  Relation.  You  may  do  some- 
thing with  the  other  ;  you  may  pass  him  off  toler- 
ably well  ;  but  your  indigent  she-relative  is  hope- 
less. "  He  is  an  old  humorist,"  you  may  say, 
"  and  affects  to  go  threadbare.  His  circum- 
stances are  better  than  folks  would  take  them  to 
be.  You  are  fond  of  having  a  Character  at  your 
table,  and  truly  he  is  one. "  But  in  the  indications 
of  female  poverty  there  can  be  no  disguise.  No 
woman  dresses  below  herself  from  caprice.  The 
truth  must  out  without  shuffling.  "  She  is  plainly 
related  to   the   L 3  ;  or  what    does  she  at 


poor  IRelations,  285 

their  house  ?  She  is,  in  all  probability,  your  wife's 
cousin.  Nine  times  out  often,  at  least,  this  is  the 
case.  Her  garb  is  something  between  a  gentle- 
woman and  a  beggar,  yet  the  former  evidently  pre- 
dominates. She  is  most  provokingly  humble,  and 
ostentatiously  sensible  to  her  inferiority.  He 
may  require  to  be  repressed  sometimes — aliquando 
sufflaminandus  erat — but  there  is  no  raising  her. 
You  send  her  soup  at  dinner,  and  she  begs    to  be 

helped — after  the  gentlemen.    Mr.  requests 

the  honor  of  taking  wine  with  her  ;  she  hesitates 
between  port  and  Madeira,  and  chooses  the  former 
— because  he  does.  She  calls  the  servant  Sir  ; 
and  insists  on  not  troubling  him  to  hold  her 
plate.  The  housekeeper  patronizes  her.  The 
children's  governess  takes  upon  her  to  correct  her, 
when  she  has  mistaken  the  piano  for  the  harpsi- 
chord. 

Richard  Amlet,  Esq.,  in  the  play,  is  a  notable 
instance  of  the  disadvantages  to  which  this 
chimerical  notion  of  affinity  constituting  a  claim  to 
acquaijitance  may  subject  the  spirit  of  a  gentle- 
man. A  little  foolish  blood  is  all  that  is  betwixt 
him  and  a  lady  with  a  great  estate.  His  stars 
are  prepetually  crossed  by  the  malignant  mater- 
nity of  an  old  woman,  who  persists  in  calling  him 
■"  her  son  Dick."  But  she  has  wherewithal  in 
the  end  to  recompense  his  indignities,  and  float  him 
again  upon  the  brilliant  surface  under  which  it 
has  been  her  seeming  business  and  pleasure  all 
along  to  sink  him.  AH  men,  besides,  are  not  of 
Dick's  temperament.  I  knew  an  Amlet  in  real  life 
who,    wanting    Dick's    buoyancy,    sank    indeed. 

Poor  W was  of  my  own  standing  at  Christ's, 

a  fine  classic,   and  a  youth  of  promise.    If  he  had 


286  B00a^0  ot  }Elia, 

a  blemish  it  was  too  much  pride  ;  but  its  quality 
was  inoffensive ;  it  was  not  of  that  sort  Avhich 
hardens  the  heart  and  serves  to  keep  inferiors  at 
a  distance ;  it  only  sought  to  ward  off  derogation 
from  itself.  It  was  the  principle  of  self-respect 
carried  as  far  as  it  could  go,  without  infringing 
upon  that  respect  which  he  would  have  every  one 
else  equally  maintain  for  himself.  He  would 
have  you  think  alike  with  him  on  this  topic. 
Many  a  quarrel  have  I  had  with  him  when  we 
were  older  boys,  and  our  tallness  made  us  more 
obnoxious  to  observation  in  the  blue  clothes, 
because  I  would  not  thread  the  alleys  and  blind 
ways  of  the  town  with  him  to  elude  notice,  when 
we  have  been  out  together  on  a  holiday  in  the 
streets  of  this  sneering  and  prying  metropolis. 

W went,  sore  with  these  notions,  to  Oxford, 

where  the  dignity  and  sweetness  of  a  scholar's 
life,  meeting  with  the  alloy  of  a  humble  introduc- 
tion, wrought  in  him  a  passionate  devotion  to  the 
place,  with  a  profound  aversion  from  the  society. 
The  servitors  gown  (worse  than  the  school  array) 
clung  to  him  with  Nessian  venom.  He  thought 
himself  ridiculous  in  a  garb  under  which  Latimer 
must  have  walked  erect,  and  in  which  Hooker,  in 
his  young  days,  possibly  flaunted  in  a  vein  of  no 
discommendable  vanity.  In  the  depth  of  college 
shades,  or  in  his  lonely  chamber,  the  poor  student 
shrunk  from  observation.  He  found  shelter 
among  books,  which  insult  not ;  and  studies,  that 
ask  no  question  of  a  youth's  finances.  He  was 
lord  of  his  library,  and  seldom  cared  for  looking 
out  beyond  his  domains.  The  healing  influence 
of  studious  pursuits  was  upon  him,  to  soothe  and 
to  abstract.     He  was  almost  a  healthy  man,  when 


IPoor  TRcUtions.  287 

the  waywardness  of  his  fate  broke  out  against 
him   with   a  second   and  worse  mahgnity.     The 

father  of  W had  hitherto  exercised  the  humble 

profession  of  house-painter  at  N ,  near  Oxford. 

A  supposed  interest  with  some  of  the  heads  of 
colleges  had  now  induced  him  to  take  up  his 
abode  in  that  city  with  the  hope  of  being  em- 
ployed upon  some  public  works  which  were  talked 
of.  From  that  moment  I  read  in  the  countenance 
of  the  young  man  the  determination  which  at 
length  tore  him  from  academical  pursuits  forever. 
To  a  person  unacquainted  with  our  universities, 
the  distance  between  the  gownsmen  and  the 
townsmen,  as  they  are  called — the  trading  part  of 
the  latter  especially — is  carried  to  an  excess  that 
would  appear  harsh  and  incredible.  The  tem- 
perament of  W 's  father  was  diametrically  the 

reverse  of  his  own.      Old  W was  a  little,  busy, 

cringing  tradesman,  who,  with  his  son  upon  his 
arm,  would  stand  bowing  and  scraping,  cap  in  . 
hand,  to  any  thing  that  wore  the  semblance  of  a 
gown,  insensible  to  the  winks  and  open  remon- 
strances of  the  young  man,  to  whose  chamber- 
fellow,  or  equal  in  standing,  perhaps,  he  was  thus 
obsequiously  and  gratuitously  ducking.     Such  a 

state  of  things  could  not  last.     W must  change 

the  air  of  Oxford  or  be  suffocated.  He  chose  the 
former ;  and  let  the  sturdy  moralist,  who  strains 
the  point  of  the  filial  duties  as  high  as  they  can 
bear,  censure  the  dereliction,  he  cannot  estimate 
the  struggle.  I  stood  with  W ,  the  last  after- 
noon I  ever  saw  him,  under  the  eves  of  his  pater- 
nal dwelling.      It  was  in    the   fine  lane  leading 

from  the  High  Street  to  the  back  of college, 

where  W kept  his  rooms.    He  seemed  thought- 


2  83  Essaiss  ot  EUa. 

ful  and  more  reconciled.  I  ventured  to  rally  him, 
finding-  him  in  a  better  mood,  upon  a  representa- 
tion of  the  Artist  Evangelist,  which  the  old  man, 
whose  affairs  were  beginning  to  flourish,  had 
caused  to  be  set  up  in  a  splendid  sort  of  frame 
over  his  really  handsome  shop,  either  as  a  token 
of  prosperity  or  badge  of  gratitude  to  his  saint. 

W looked  up   at  the  Luke,   and,  like  Satan, 

*'knew  his  mounted  sign — and  fled."  A  letter  on 
his  father's  table  the  next  morning  announced 
that  he  had  accepted  a  commission  in  a  regiment 
about  to  embark  for  Portugal.  He  was  among 
the  first  who  perished  before  the  walls  of  St. 
Sebastian. 

I  do  not  know  how,  upon  a  subject  which  I 
began  with  treating  half  seriously,  1  should  have 
fallen  upon  a  recital  so  eminently  painful.  But 
this  theme  of  poor  relationship  is  replete  with  so 
much  matter  for  tragic  as  well  as  comic  associa- 
tions, that  it  is  difficult  to  keep  the  account  distinct 
without  blending.  The  earliest  impressions  which 
I  received  on  this  matter  are  certainly  not  attended 
with  any  thing  painful  or  very  humiliating  in  the 
recalling.  At  my  fathers  table  (no  very  splendid 
one)  was  to  be  found,  every  Saturday,  the  myste- 
rious figure  of  an  aged  gentleman,  clothed  in  deep 
black,  of  a  sad  yet  comely  appearance.  His  de- 
portment was  of  the  essence  of  gravity  ;  his  words 
few  or  none  ;  and  I  was  not  to  make  a  noise  in 
his  presence.  1  had  little  inclination  to  have  done 
so,  for  my  cue  was  to  admire  in  silence.  A  par- 
ticular elbow-chair  was  appropriated  to  him,  which 
was  in  no  case  to  be  violated.  A  peculiar  sort  of 
sweet  pudding,  which  appeared  on  no  other  occa- 
sion, distinguished  the  days  of  his  coming.     I  used 


poor  IRelations.  289 

to  think  him  a  prodigiously  rich  man.  All  I  could 
make  out  of  him  was,  that  he  and  my  father  had 
been  schoolfellows  a  world  ago  at  Lincoln,  and  that 
he  came  from  the  Mint.  The  Mint  I  knew  to  be 
a  place  where  all  the  money  was  coined,  and  I 
thought  he  was  the  owner  of  all  that  money.  Aw- 
ful ideas  of  the  Tower  twined  themselves  about 
his  presence.  He  seemed  above  human  infirmi- 
ties and  passions.  A  sort  of  melancholy  grand- 
eur invested  him.  From  some  inexplicable  doom 
I  fancied  him  obliged  to  go  about  in  an  eternal 
suit  of  mourning  ;  a  captive,  a  stately  being,  let 
out  of  the  Tower  on  Saturdays.  Often  have  I 
wondered  at  the  temerity  of  my  father,  who,  in 
spite  of  an  habitual  general  respect  which  we 
all  in  common  manifested  towards  him,  would 
venture  now  and  then  to  stand  up  against  him 
in  some  argument,  touching  their  youthful  days. 
The  houses  of  the  ancient  city  of  Lincoln  are  divid- 
ed (as  most  of  my  readers  know)  between  the 
dwellers  on  the  hill,  and  in  the  valley.  This 
marked  distinction  formed  an  obvious  division 
between  the  boys  who  lived  above  (however 
brought  together  in  a  common  school)  and  the 
boys  whose  paternal  residence  was  on  the  plain  ; 
a  sufficient  cause  of  hostility  in  the  code  of  these 
young  Grotiuses.  My  father  had  been  a  leading 
Mountaineer  ;  and  would  still  maintain  the  general 
superiority,  in  skill  and  hardihood,  of  the  Above 
Boys  (his  own  faction)  over  the  Below  Boys  (so 
w^ere  they  called),  of  which  party  his  contempo- 
rary had  been  a  chieftain.  Many  and  hot  were  the 
skirmishes  on  this  topic,  the  only  one  on  which 
the  old  gentleman  was  ever  brought  out — and  bad 
"blood bred;  even  sometimes  almost  to  the  recom- 

19 


29b  iB36n^3  ot  :eiia. 

mencement  (so  I  expected)  of  actual  hostilities. 
But  my  father,  who  scorned  to  insist  upon  advan- 
tages, generally  contrived  to  turn  the  conversa- 
tion upon  some  adroit  by-commendation  of  the  old 
Minister  ;  in  the  general  preference  for  which, 
before  all  other  cathedrals  in  the  island,  the  dwell- 
er on  the  hill,  and  the  plain-born,  could  meet  on 
a  conciliating  level,  and  lay  down  their  less  im- 
portant differences.  Once  only  I  saw  the  old 
gentleman  really  ruffled,  and  I  remembered  with 
anguish  the  thought  that  came  over  me:  "Per- 
haps he  will  never  come  here  again. "  He  had  been 
pressed  to  take  another  plate  of  the  viand  which 
I  have  already  mentioned  as  the  indispensable 
concomitant  of  his  visits.  He  had  refused  with  a 
resistance  amounting  to  rigor — when  my  aunt,  an 
old  Lincolnian,  but  who  had  something  of  this,  in 
common  with  my  cousin  Bridget,  that  she  would 
sometimes  press  civility  out  of  season, — uttered 
the  following  memorable  application:  "Do  take 
another  slice,  ^Ir.  Billet,  for  you  do  not  get  pud- 
ding every  day. "  The  old  gentleman  said  nothing 
at  the  time, — but  he  took  occasion  in  the  course 
of  the  evening,  when  some  argument  had  inter- 
vened between  them,  to  utter  with  an  emphasis 
which  chilled  the  company,  and  which  chills  me 
now  as  I  write  it — "Woman,  you  are  superannu- 
ated !  "  John  Billet  did  not  survive  long,  after  the 
digesting  of  this  affront ;  but  he  survived  long 
enough  to  assure  me  that  peace  was  actually  re- 
stored !  and,  if  I  remember  aright,  another  pud- 
ding was  discreetly  substituted  in  the  place  of  that 
which  had  occasioned  the  offence.  He  died  at 
the  Mint  (anno  1781),  where  he  had  long  held, 
what  he  had  accounted  a  comfortable  indepen- 


IPoor  TRelation0.  291 

dence ;  and  with  five  pounds,  fourteen  shillings, 
and  a  penny,  which  were  found  in  his  escritoire 
after  his  decease,  left  the  world,  blessing  God  that 
he  had  enough  to  bury  him,  and  that  he  had  never 
been  obliged  to  any  man  for  a  sixpence.  This 
was  a  Poor  Relation. 


DETACHED   THOUGHTS    ON    BOOKS    AND 
READING. 


To  mind  the  inside  of  a  book  is  to  entertain  one's  self  with 
the  forced  product  of  another  man's  brain.  Now  I  think  a 
man  of  quality  and  breeding  may  be  much  amused  with  the 
natural  sprouts  of  his  own. — Lord  Foppitigton  in  the  Relapse. 

An  ingenious  acquaintance  of  my  own  was  so 
much  struck  with  this  bright  sally  of  his  Lordship, 
that  he  has  left  off  reading  altogether,  to  the  great 
improvement  of  his  originality.  At  the  hazard  of 
losing  some  credit  on  this  head,  I  must  confess 
that  I  dedicate  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  my 
time  to  other  people's  thoughts.  I  dream  away 
my  life  in  others'  speculations.  I  love  to  lose 
myself  in  other  men's  minds.  When  I  am  not 
walking,  I  am  reading;  I  cannot  sit  and  think. 
Books  think  for  me. 

I  have  no  repugnances.  Shaftesbury  is  not  too 
genteel  for  me,  nor  Jonathan  Wild  too  low.  I 
can  read  any  thing  which  I  call  a  hook.  There 
are  things  in  that  shape  which  I  cannot  allow  for 
such. 

In  this  catalogue  of  hooks  which  ai-e  no  hooks 
— hihlia  a-hihlia — I  reckon  Court  Calendars,  Direct- 
ories, Pocket-Books,  Draught-Boards,  bound  and 
lettered  on  the  back,  Scientific  Treatises,  Alma- 
nacs, Statutes  at  Large  ;  the  works  of  Hume,  Gib- 
292 


2)etacbe5  ^bougbts  on  JSoofts  anD  'KeaDinQ.   293 

bon,  Robertson,  Beattie,  Soame  Jenyns,  and,  gen- 
erally, all  those  volumes  which  "no  gentleman's 
library  should  be  without  "  ;  the  Histories  of  Fla- 
vius  Josephus  (that  learned  Jew),  and  Paley's 
Moral  PhMosophy.  With  these  exceptions,  I  can 
read  almost  any  thing.  I  bless  my  stars  for  a 
taste  so  catholic,  so  unexcluding. 

I  confess  that  it  moves  my  spleen  to  see  these 
things  in  books'  clothing  perched  upon  shelves, 
like  false  saints,  usurpers  of  true  shrines,  intrud- 
ers into  the  sanctuary,  thrusting  out  the  legiti- 
mate occupants.  To  reach  down  a  well-bound 
semblance  of  a  volume,  and  hope  it  some  kind- 
hearted  play-book,  then,  opening  what  "seem  its 
leaves,"  to  come  bolt  upon  a  withering  Popula- 
tion Essay.  To  expect  a  Steele,  or  a  Farquhar, 
and  find — Adam  Smith.  To  view  a  well-arranged 
assortment  of  block-headed  Encyclopaedias  (An- 
glicanas  or  Metropolitanas)  set  out  in  an  array  of 
russia,  or  morocco,  when  a  tithe  of  that  good 
leather  would  comfortably  re-clothe  my  shivering 
folios  ;  would  renovate  Paracelsus  himself,  and 
enable  old  Raymund  Lully  to  look  like  himself 
again  in  the  world.  I  never  see  these  impostors, 
but  I  long  to  strip  them,  to  warm  my  ragged 
veterans  in  their  spoils. 

To  be  strong-backed  and  neat-bound  is  the 
desideratum  of  a  volume.  Magnificence  comes 
after.  This,  when  it  can  be  afforded,  is  not  to  be 
lavished  upon  all  kinds  of  books  indiscriminately. 
I  would  not  dress  a  set  of  Magazines,  for  in- 
stances, in  full  suit.  The  dishabille  or  half-bind- 
ing (with  russia  backs  ever)  is  otir  costume.  A 
Shakespeare,  or  a  Milton  (unless  the  first  edi- 
tions), it  were  mere  foppery  to  trick  out  in  gay 


294  B56a^s  ot  J8Ua. 

apparel.  The  possession  of  them  confers  no  dis- 
tinction. The  exterior  of  them  (the  things  them- 
selves being-  so  common),  strange  to  say,  raises 
no  sweet  emotions,  no  tickling  sense  of  property 
in  the  owner.  Thomson's  Seasons,  ag^in,  looks 
(best  I  maintain  it)  a  little  torn  and  dog's-eared. 
How  beautiful  to  a  genuine  lover  of  reading  are 
the  sullied  leaves,  and  worn-out  appearance,  nay 
the  very  odor  (beyond  russia),  if  we  would  not 
forget  kind  feelings  in  fastidiousness,  of  an  old 
"Circulating  Library"  Tom  Jones,  or  Vicar  of 
Wakefield  !  How  they  speak  of  the  thousand 
thumbs  that  have  turned  over  their  pages  with 
delight ! — of  the  lone  sempstress,  whom  they  may 
have  cheered  (milliner,  or  harder-working  man- 
tua-maker)  after  her  long  day's  needle-toil,  run* 
ning  far  into  midnight,  when  she  has  snatched  an 
hour,  ill  spared  from  sleep,  to  steep  her  cares,  as 
in  some  Lethean  cup,  in  spelling  out  their  en- 
chanting contents !  Who  would  have  them  a 
whit  less  soiled  ?  What  better  condition  could 
we  desire  to  see  them  in  .'* 

In  some  respects  the  better  a  book  is,  the  less 
it  demands  from  binding.  Fielding,  Smollett 
Sterne,  and  all  that  class  of  perpetually  self-pro- 
ductive volumes — Great  Nature's  Stereotypes — 
we  see  them  individually  perish  with  less  regret, 
because  we  know  the  copies  of  them  to  be 
"eterne."  But  where  a  book  is  at  once  both 
good  and  rare,  where  the  individual  is  almost  the 
species,  and  when  that  perishes. 

We  know  not  where  is  that  Promethean  torch 
Which  can  its  light  relumine, — 

such  a  book,   for  instance,   as  the  "Life  of  tne 


2)etacbeD  ^bousbts  on  :f6ooft6  anJ)  iReaMns.   295 

Duke  of  Newcastle,'*  by  his  Duchess — no  casket 
is  rich  enough,  no  casing  sufficiently  durable,  to 
honor  and  keep  safe  such  a  jewel. 

Not  only  rare  volumes  of  this  description, 
which  seem  hopeless  ever  to  be  reprinted  ;  but 
old  editions  of  writers,  such  as  Sir  Philip  Sydney, 
Bishop  Taylor,  Milton  in  his  prose  works,  Fuller 
— of  whom  we  have  reprints,  yet  the  books  them- 
selves, though  they  go  about,  and  are  talked  of 
here  and  there,  we  know,  have  not  endenizened 
themselves  (nor  possibly  ever  will)  in  the  national 
heart,  so  as  to  become  stock  books — it  is  good  to 
possess  these  indurable  and  costly  covers.  I  do 
not  care  for  a  first  folio  of  Shakespeare.  I  rather 
prefer  the  common  editions  of  Rowe  and  Tonson, 
without  notes,  and  with  plates,  which,  being  so 
execrably  bad,  serve  as  maps,  or  modest  remem- 
brancers, to  the  text  ;  and  without  pretending  to 
any  supposable  emulation  with  it,  are  so  much 
better  than  the  Shakespeare  gallery  e7igravmgs, 
which  did.  I  have  a  community  of  feeling  with 
my  countrymen  about  his  Plays,  and  I  like  those 
editions  of  him  best,  which  have  been  oftenest 
tumbled  about  and  handled.  On  the  contrary, 
I  cannot  read  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  but  in  the 
Folio.  The  octavo  editions  are  painful  to  look 
at.  I  have  no  sympathy  with  them.  If  they 
were  as  much  read  as  the  current  editions  of  the 
other  poet,  I  should  prefer  them  in  that  shape  to 
the  older  one.  I  do  not  know  a  more  heartless 
sight  than  the  reprint  of  the  "Anatomy  of  Melan- 
choly." What  need  was  there  of  unearthing  the 
bones  of  that  fantastic  old  great  man,  to  expose 
them  in  a  winding-sheet  of  the  newest  fashion  to 
modern    censure.'*  what  hapless    stationer   could 


296  Bssags  of  Blia. 

dream  of  Burton  ever  becoming  popular?  The 
wretched  Malone  could  not  do  worse  when  he 
bribed  the  sexton  of  Stratford  Church  to  let  him 
whitewash  the  painted  effigy  of  old  Shakespeare, 
which  stood  there,  in  rude  but  lively  fashion 
depicted,  to  the  very  color  of  the  cheek,  the  eye, 
the  eyebrow,  hair,  the  very  dress  he  used  to  wear 
— the  only  authentic  testimony  we  had,  however 
imperfect,  of  these  curious  parts  and  parcels  of 
him.     They  covered  him    over   with   a   coat   of 

white  paint.      By ,  if  I  had  been  a  justice  of 

the  peace  for  Warwickshire,  I  would  have  clapped 
both  commentator  and  sexton  fast  in  the  stocks, 
for  a  pair  of  meddling  sacrilegious  varlets. 

I  think  I  see  them  at  their  work — these  sapient 
trouble-tombs. 

Shall  I  be  thought  fantastical  if  I  confess  that 
the  names  of  some  poets  sound  sweeter,  and  have 
a  finer  relish  to  the  ear — to  mine,  at  least — than 
that  of  Milton  or  of  Shakespeare  ?  It  may  be  that 
the  latter  are  more  staled  and  rung  upon  in  com- 
mon discourse.  The  sweetest  names,  and  which 
carry  a  perfume  in  the  mention,  are  Kit  IMarlowe, 
Drayton,  Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  and  Cow- 
ley. 

Much  depends  upon  when  and  where  you  read 
a  book.  In  the  five  or  six  impatient  minutes, 
before  the  dinner  is  quite  ready,  who  would  think 
of  taking  up  the  "  Fairy  Queen  "  for  a  stop-gap, 
or  a  volume  of  Bishop  Andrewes's  sermons  ? 

Milton  almost  requires  a  solemn  service  of 
music  to  be  played  before  you  enter  upon  him. 
But  he  brings  his  music,  to  which,  who  listens 
had  need  bring  docile  thoughts  and  purged  ears. 

Winter  evenings — the  world  shut  out — with  less 


DetacbeD  C^bougbts  on  IBoo'ks  auD  IReaMns.   297 

of  ceremony  the  gentle  Shakespeare  enters.  At 
such  a  season,  the  ''Tempest/'  or  his  own 
"Winter's  Tale" 

These  two  poets  you  cannot  avoid  reading 
aloud — to  yourself,  or  (as  it  chances)  to  some 
single  person  listening.  More  than  one — and  it 
degenerates  into  an  audience. 

Books  of  quick  interest,  that  hurry  on  for  inci- 
dents, are  for  the  eye  to  glide  over  only.  It  will 
not  do  to  read  them  out.  I  could  never  listen  to 
even  the  better  kind  of  modern  novels  without 
extreme  irksomeness. 

A  newspaper  read  out,  is  intolerable.  In  some 
of  the  bank  offices  it  is  the  custom  (to  save  so 
much  individual  time)  for  one  of  the  clerks — who 
is  the  best  scholar — to  commence  upon  the  Times, 
or  the  Chronicle,  and  recite  its  entire  contents 
aloud,  pro  bono  publico.  With  every  advantage  of 
lungs  and  elocution,  the  effect  is  singularly  vapid. 
In  barber's  shops  and  public-houses  a  fellow  will 
get  up  and  spell  out  a  paragraph,  which  he  com- 
municates as  some  discovery.  Another  follows 
with  his  selection.  So  the  entire  journal  trans- 
pires at  length  by  piecemeal.  Seldom-readers 
are  slow  readers,  and,  without  this  expedient,  no 
one  in  the  company  would  probably  ever  travel 
through  the  contents  of  a  whole  paper. 

Newspapers  always  excite  curiosity.  No  one 
ever  lays  one  down  without  a  feeling  of  disap- 
pointment. 

What  an  eternal  time  that  gentleman  in  black, 
at  Nando's,  keeps  the  paper  !  I  am  sick  of  hear- 
ing the  waiter  bawling  out  incessantly,  "The 
Chronicle  is  in  hand,  sir." 

Coming  into   an  inn   at   night — having  ordered 


298  360sas0  ot  :eifa» 

your  supper — what  can  be  more  delightful  than  to 
find  lying  in  the  window-seat,  left  there  time  out 
of  mind  by  the  carelessness  of  some  former  guest, 
two  or  three  numbers  of  the  old  Town  and  Country 
magazine,  with  its  amusing  iete-a-iete  pictures, — 

"The   Royal    Lover   and   Lady    G ,"    "The 

Melting  Platonic  and  the  Old  Beau,"  and  such 
like  antiquated  scandal  ?  Would  you  exchange 
it — at  that  time,  and  in  that  place — for  a  better 
book  ? 

Poor  Tobin,  who  latterly  fell  blind,  did  not 
regret  it  so  much  for  the  weightier  kinds  of  read- 
ing— the  "Paradise  Lost,"  or  "Comus,"  he  could 
have  read  to  him — but  he  missed  the  pleasure  of 
skimming  over  with  his  own  eye  a  magazine  or 
a  light  pamphlet 

I  should  not  care  to  be  caught  in  the  serious 
avenues  of  some  cathedral  alone,  and  reading 
"Candide." 

I  do  not  remember  a  more  whimsical  surprise 
than  having  been  once  detected — by  a  familiar 
damsel — reclined  at  my  ease  upon  the  grass 
on  Primrose  Hill  (her  Cythera)  reading  "  Pamela." 
There  was  nothing  in  the  book  to  make  a  man 
seriously  ashamed  at  the  exposure  ;  but  as  she 
seated  herself  down  by  me,  and  seemed  deter- 
mined to  read  in  company,  I  could  have  wished 
it  had  been — any  other  book.  We  read  on  very 
sociably  for  a  few  pages,  and  not  finding  the 
author  much  to  her  taste,  she  got  up  and  went — • 
away.  Gentle  casuist,  I  leave  it  to  thee  to  con- 
jecture whether  the  blush  (for  there  was  one  be- 
tween us)  was  the  property  of  the  nymph  or  the 
swain  in  this  dilemma.  From  me  you  shall  never 
get  the  secret. 


DctacbeD  a;bou0bt5  on  JBoofts  auD  IReaOing.   299 

I  am  not  much  a  friend  to  out-of-doors  reading. 
I  can  not  settle  my  spirits  to  it.  I  knew  a  Uni- 
tarian minister,  who  was  generally  to  be  seen  upon 
Snow  Hill  (as  yet  Skinner's  Street  was  not),  be- 
tween the  hours  of  ten  and  eleven  in  the  morning, 
studying  a  volume  of  Lardner.  I  own  this  to 
have  been  a  strain  of  abstraction  beyond  my 
reach.  I  used  to  admire  how  he  sidled  along, 
keeping  clear  of  secular  contacts.  An  illiterate 
encounter  with  a  porter's  knot  or  a  bread-basket 
would  have  quickly  put  to  flight  all  the  theology 
I  am  master  of,  and  have  left  me  worse  than 
indifferent  to  the  five  points. 

^There  is  a  class  of  street-readers  whom  I  can 
never  contemplate  without  affection — the  poor 
gentry,  who,  not  having  wherewithal  to  buy  or  hire 
a  book,  filch  a  little  learning  at  the  open  stalls — 
the  owner,  with  his  hard  eye,  casting  envious 
looks  at  them  all  the  while,  and  thinking  when 
they  will  have  done.  Venturing  tenderly,  page 
after  page,  expecting  every  moment  when  he  shall 
interpose  his  interdict,  and  yet  unable  to  deny 
themselves  the  gratification,  they  "snatch  a  fear- 
ful joy."     Martin    B ,   in    this  way,  by  daily 

fragments,  got  through  two  volumes  of  "Clarissa," 
when  the  stall-keeper  damped  his  laudible  ambi- 
tion by  asking  him  (it  was  in  his  younger  days) 

whether  he  meant  to  purchase  the  work.      M 

declares  that  under  no  circumstance  in  his  life  did 
he  ever  peruse  a  book  with  half  the  satisfaction 
which  he  took  in  those  uneasy  snatches.  A 
quaint  poetess  of  our  day  has  moralized  upon 
this  subject  in  two  very  touching  but  homely 
stanzas : 


300  B6sa^0  of  BUa.  . 

I  saw  a  boy  with  eager  eye 

Open  a  book  upon  a  stall, 

And  read,  as  he'd  devour  it  all : 

Which  when  the  stall-man  did  espy, 

Soon  to  the  boy  I  heard  him  call : 

"  You,  sir,  you  never  buy  a  book, 

Therefore  in  one  you  shall  not  look." 

The  boy  pass'd  slowly  on,  and  with  a  sigh 

He  wish'd  he  never  had  been  taught  to  read, 

Then  of  the  old  churl's  books  he  should  have  had  no  need. 

Of  sufferings  the  poor  have  many, 

Which  never  can  the  rich  annoy  : 

I  soon  perceived  another  boy. 

Who  looked  as  if  he  had  not  any 

Food,  for  that  day  at  least, — enjoy 

The  sight  of  cold  meat  in  a  tavern  larder.  ^ 

This  boy's  case,  then  thought  I,  is  surely  harder, 

Thus  hungry,  longing,  thus  without  a  penny. 

Beholding  choice  of  dainty-dressed  meat : 

No  wonder  if  he  wish  he  ne'er  had  leam'd  to  eat. 


STAGE  ILLUSION. 


A  PLAY  is  said  to  be  well  or  ill  acted,  in  propor- 
tion to  the  scenical  illusion  produced.  Whether 
such  illusion  can  in  any  case  be  perfect,  is  not 
the  question.  The  nearest  approach  to  it,  we  are 
told,  is  when  the  actor  appears  wholly  uncon- 
scious of  the  presence  of  spectators.  In  tragedy 
— in  all  which  is  to  affect  the  feelings — this  undi- 
vided attention  to  his  stage  business  seems  indis- 
pensable. Yet  it  is,  in  fact,  dispensed  with  every 
day  by  our  cleverest  tragedians,  and  while  these 
references  to  an  audience,  in  the  shape  of  rant  or 
sentiment  are  not  too  frequent  or  palpable,  a  suf- 
ficient quantity  of  illusion  for  the  purposes  of 
dramatic  interest  may  be  said  to  be  produced  in 
spite  of  them.  But,  tragedy  apart,  it  may  be 
inquired  whether  in  certain  characters  in  comedy, 
especially  those  which  are  a  little  extravagant,  or 
which  involve  some  notion  repugnant  to  the 
moral  sense,  it  is  not  a  proof  of  the  highest  skill 
in  the  comedian  when,  without  absolutely  appeal- 
ing to  an  audience,  he  keeps  up  a  tacit  under- 
standing with  them,  and  makes  them,  uncon- 
sciously to  themselves,  a  party  in  the  scene.  The 
utmost  nicety  is  required  in  the  mode  of  doing 
this  ;  but  we  speak  only  of  the  great  artists  in  the 
profession. 

301 


302  iSesn^s  ot  BUa. 

The  most  mortifying  infirmity  in  human  nature, 
to  feel  in  ourselves,  or  to  contemplate  in  another, 
is  perhaps  cowardice.  To  see  a  coward  done  to 
the  life  upon  a  stage  would  produce  any  thing  but 
mirth.  Yet  we  most  of  us  remember  Jack  Ban- 
nister's cowards.  Could  any  thing  be  more 
agreeable,  more  pleasant  .-^  We  loved  the  rogues. 
How  was  this  effected  but  by  the  exquisite  art  of 
the  actor  in  a  perpetual  sub-insinuation  to  us,  the 
spectators,  even  in  the  extremity  of  the  shaking 
fit,  that  he  was  not  half  such  a  coward  as  we  took 
him  for  }  We  saw  all  the  common  symptoms  of 
the  malady  upon  him  ;  the  quivering  lip,  the 
cowering  knees,  the  teeth  chattering — and  could 
have  sworn  that  man  was  frightened.  But  we 
forgot  all  the  while — or  kept  it  almost  a  secret  to 
ourselves — that  he  never  once  lost  his  self-posses- 
sion ;  that  he  let  out  by  a  thousand  droll  looks 
and  gestures — meant  at  us,  and  not  at  all  sup- 
posed to  be  visible  to  his  fellows  in  the  scene, 
that  his  confidence  in  his  own  resources  had 
never  once  deserted  him.  Was  this  a  genuine 
picture  of  a  coward .?  or  not  rather  a  likeness, 
which  the  clever  artist  contrived  to  palm  upon  us 
instead  of  an  original,  while  we  secretly  connived 
at  the  delusion  for  the  purpose  of  greater  pleasure 
than  a  more  genuine  counterfeiting  of  the  imbe- 
cility, helplessness,  and  utter  self-desertion,  which 
we  know  to  be  concomitants  of  cowardice  in  real 
life,  could  have  given  us } 

Why  are  misers  so  hateful  in  the  world,  and  so 
endurable  on  the  stage,  but  because  the  skilful 
actor,  by  a  sort  of  sub-reference,  rather  than  direct 
appeal  to  us,  disarms  the  character  of  a  great  deal 
of  its  odiousness,  by  seeming  to  engage  our  com- 


stage  fUusfon.  303 

passion  for  the  insecure  tenure  by  which  he  holds 
his  money-bags  and  parchments?  By  this  subtle 
A^ent  half  of  the  hatefulness  of  the  character--the 
self-closeness  with  which  in  real  life  it  coils  itself 
up  from  the  sympathies  of  men — evaporates.  The 
miser  becomes  sympathetic  ;  /.  e.,  is  no  genuine 
miser.  Here  again  a  diverting  likeness  is  sub- 
stituted for  a  very  disagreeable  reality. 

Spleen,  irritability — the  pitiable  infirmities  of 
old  men,  which  produce  only  pain  to  behold  in 
the  realities,  counterfeited  upon  a  stage,  divert 
not  altogether  for  the  comic  appendages  to  them, 
but  in  part  from  an  inner  conviction  that  they  are 
being  acted  before  us  ;  that  a  likeness  only  is  going 
on,  and  not  the  thing  itself.  They  please  by  being 
done  under  the  life,  or  beside  it ;  not  lo  the  life. 
When  Gattie  acts  an  old  man,  is  he  angry  indeed } 
or  only  a  pleasant  counterfeit,  just  enough  of  a 
likeness  to  recognize,  without  pressing  upon  us 
the  uneasy  sense  of  a  reality .? 

Comedians,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  may 
be  too  natural.  It  was  the  case  with  a  late  actor. 
Nothing  could  be  more  earnest  or  true  than  the 
manner  of  Mr.  Emery  ;  this  told  excellently  in 
his  Tyke,  and  characters  of  a  tragic  cast.  But 
when  he  carried  the  same  rigid  exclusiveness  of 
attention  to  the  stage  business,  and  wilful  blind- 
ness and  oblivion  of  every  thingbefore  the  curtain 
into  his  comedy,  it  produced  a  harsh  and  dissonant 
effect.  He  was  out  of  keeping  with  the  rest  of  the 
PersoncB  Dramatis.  There  was  as  little  link  be- 
tween him  and  them,  as  betwixt  himself  and  the 
audience.  He  was  a  third  estate,  dry,  repulsive, 
and  unsocial  to  all.  Individually  considered,  his 
execution  was  masterly.     But  comedy  is  not  this 


304  B06as6  Of  Blia. 

unbending  thing- ;  for  this  reason,  that  the  same  de- 
gree of  credibility  is  not  required  of  it  as  to  serious 
scenes.  The  degrees  of  credibihty  demanded  to 
the  two  things,  may  be  ilhistrated  by  the  dif- 
ferent sort  of  truth  which  we  expect  when  a  man 
tells  us  a  mournful  or  a  merry  story.  If  we  sus- 
pect the  former  of  falsehood  in  any  one  tittle,  we 
reject  it  altogether.  Our  tears  refuse  to  flow  at  a 
suspected  imposition.  But  the  teller  of  a  mirthful 
tale  has  latitude  allowed  him.  We  are  content 
with  less  than  absolute  truth.  Tis  the  same  with 
dramatic  illusion.  We  confess  we  love  in  comedy 
to  see  an  audience  naturalized  behind  the  scenes, 
taken  into  the  interest  of  the  drama,  welcomed  as 
bystanders  however.  There  is  something  un- 
gracious in  a  comic  actor  holding  himself  aloof 
from  all  participation  or  concern  with  those  who 
are  come  to  be  diverted  by  him.  Macbeth  must 
see  the  dagger,  and  no  ear  but  his  own  be  told  of 
it  ;  but  an  old  fool  in  farce  may  think  he  sees  some- 
thing, and  by  conscious  words  and  looks  express 
it,  as  plainly  as  he  can  speak,  to  pit,  box,  and 
gallery.  When  an  impertinent  in  tragedy,  an 
Osric,  for  instance,  breaks  in  upon  the  serious 
passions  of  the  scene,  we  approve  of  the  contempt 
with  which  he  is  treated.  But  when  the  pleasant 
impertinent  of  comedy,  in  a  piece  purely  meant 
to  give  delight,  and  raise  mirth  out  of  whimsical 
perplexities,  worries  the  studious  man  with  taking 
up  his  leisure,  or  making  his  house  his  home,  the 
same  sort  of  contempt  expressed  (however  natural) 
would  destroy  the  balance  of  delight  in  the  spec- 
tators. To  make  the  intrusion  connlc,  the  actor 
who  plays  the  annoyed  m^n  must  a  little  desert 
nature ;  he   must,  in   short,  be  thinking  of  the 


stage  ITUusiom  305 

audience,  and  express  only  so  much  dissatisfaction 
and  peevishness  as  is  consistent  with  the  pleasure 
of  comedy.  In  other  words,  his  perplexity  must 
seem  half  put  on.  If  he  repel  the  intruder  with 
the  sober  set  face  of  a  man  in  earnest,  and  more 
especially  if  he  deliver  his  expostulations  in  a  tone 
which  in  the  world  must  necessarily  provoke  a 
duel ;  his  real-life  manner  will  destroy  the  whim- 
sical and  purely  dramatic  existence  of  the  other 
character  (which  to  render  it  comic  demands  an 
antagonist  comicality  on  the  part  of  the  character 
opposed  to  it),  and  convert  what  was  meant  for 
mirth,  rather  than  belief,  into  a  downright  piece 
of  impertinence  indeed,  which  would  raise  no  di- 
version in  us,  but  rather  stir  pain,  to  see  inflicted 
in  earnest  upon  any  unworthy  person.  A  very 
judicious  actor  (in  most  of  his  parts)  seems  to  have 
fallen  into  an  error  of  this  sort  in  his  playing  with 
Mr.  Wrench  in  the  farce  of  "  Free  and  Easy." 

Many  instances  would  be  tedious  ;  these  may 
suffice  to  show  that  comic  acting  at  least  does  not 
always  demand  from  the  performer  that  strict 
abstraction  from  all  reference  to  an  audience 
which  is  exacted  of  it ;  but  that  in  some  cases  a 
sort  of  compromise  may  take  place,  and  all  the 
purposes  of  dramatic  delight  be  attained  by  a 
judicious  understanding,  not  too  openly  an- 
nounced, between  the  ladies  and  gentlemen — on 
both  sides  of  the  curtain. 


20 


TO  THE  SHADE  OF  ELLISTON. 


JoYOUSEST  of  once  embodied  spirits,  whither  at 
length  hast  thou  flown  ?  to  what  genial  region  are 
we  permitted  to  conjecture  that  thou  hast  flitted? 

Art  thou  sowing  thy  wild  oats  yet  (the  harvest 
time  was  still  to  come  with  thee)  upon  casual 
sands  of  Avenius?  or  art  thou  enacting  Rover  (as 
we  would  gladlier  think)  by  wandering  Elysian 
streams  ? 

This  mortal  frame,  while  thou  didst  play  thy 
brief  antics  amongst  us,  was  in  truth  any  thing 
but  a  prison  to  thee,  as  the  vain  Platonist  dreams 
of  this  body  to  be  no  better  than  a  county  jail, 
forsooth,  or  some  house  of  durance  vile,  whereof 
the  five  senses  are  the  fetters.  Thou  knewest 
better  than  to  be  in  a  hurry  to  cast  off  those  gyves 
and  had  notice  to  quit,  I  fear,  before  thou  wert 
quite  ready  to  abandon  this  fleshy  tenement.  It 
was  thy  Pleasure-House,  thy  Palace  of  Dainty 
Devices  ;  thy  Louvre,  or  thy  White  Hall. 

What  new  mysterious  lodgings  dost  thou 
tenant  now }  or  when  may  we  expect  thy  aerial 
house-warming } 

Tartarus  we  know,  and  we  have  read  of  the 
Blessed  Shades ;  now  cannot  I  intelligibly  fancy 
thee  in  either. 

Is  it  too  much  to  hazard  a  conjecture,  that  (as 
306 


ZIo  tbc  SbaOe  of  BUfeton.  507 

fhe  schoolmen  admitted  a  receptacle  apart  for 
Patriarchs  and  un-chrisom  babes)  there  may- 
exist — not  far  perchance  from  that  storehouse  of 
all  vanities,  which  Milton  saw  in  vision — a  Limbo 
somewhere  for  Players  ?  and  that 

Up  thither  like  aerial  vapors  fly 

Both  all  Stage  things,  and  all  that  in  Stage  things 

Built  their  fond  hopes  of  glory,  or  lasting  fame  ? 

All  the  unaccomplished  works  of  Authors'  hands, 

Abortive,  monstrous  or  unkindly  mixed, 

Damn'd  upon  earth,  fleet  thither — 

Play,  Opera,  Farce,  with  all  their  trumpery. 

There,  by  the  neighboring-  moon  (by  some  not 
improperly  supposed  thy  Regent  Planet  upon 
earth)  mayst  thou  not  still  be  acting  thy  man- 
agerial pranks,  great  disembodied  Lessee  ?  but 
Lessee  still,  and  still  a  manager. 

In  Green  Rooms,  impervious  to  mortal  eye,  the 
muse  beholds  thee  wielding  posthumous  empire. 

Thin  ghosts  of  Figurantes  (never  plump  on 
earth)  circle  thee  in  endlessly,  and  still  their  song 
is  Fie  on  sinful  Fantasy  / 

Magnificent  were  thy  capriccios  on  this  globe 
of  earth,  Robert  William  Elliston  !  for  as  yet  we 
know  not  thy  new  name  in  heaven. 

It  irks  me  to  think,  that,  stript  of  thy  regalities, 
thou  shouldst  ferry  over,  a  poor  forked  shade,  in 
crazy  Stygian  wherry.  Methinks  I  hear  the  old 
boatman,  paddling  by  the  weedy  wharf,  with 
raucid  voice,  bawling  "Sculls,  Sculls  !  "  to  which, 
with  waving  hand,  and  majestic  action,  thou 
deignest  no  reply,  other  than  in  two  curt  mono- 
syllables :   * '  No  :  Oars. " 

But  the  laws  of  Pluto  s  kingdom  know  small 


30S  ^6653155  Of  JSIla, 

difference  between    king  and  cobbler 

and    call-boy  ;    and,   if  haply  your   dates   of  life 

were  conterminant,  you  are   quietly  taking  your 

passage,  cheek  by  cheek  (O  ignoble  leveling  of 

Death  !)  with  the  shade  of  some  recently  departed 

candle-snuffer. 

But  mercy ;  what  strippings,  what  tearing  off 
of  histrionic  robes  and  private  vanities ;  what 
denudations  to  the  bone,  before  the  surly  Ferry- 
man will  admit  you  to  set  a  foot  within  his  bat- 
tered lighter  ! 

Crowns,  sceptres,  shield,  sword,  and  truncheon, 
thy  own  coronation  robes  (for  thou  hast  brought 
the  whole  property-man's  wardrobe  with  thee, 
enough  to  sink  a  navy),  the  judge's  ermine,  the 
coxcomb's  wig,  the  snuff-box  a  la  Foppi7igto7i, — all 
must  overboard,  he  positively  swears  ;  and  that 
Ancient  Mariner  brooks  no  denial  ;  for,  since 
the  tiresome  monodrame  of  the  old  Thracian 
Harper,  Charon,  it  is  to  be  believed,  hath  shown 
small  taste  for  theatricals. 

Ay,  now  'tis  done.  You  are  just  boat-weight ; 
pura  et  puta  anima. 

But,  bless  you,  how  little  you  look  ! 

So  shall  we  all  look — kings  and  keysars — 
stripped  for  the  last  voyage. 

But  the  murky  rogue  pushes  off.  Adieu,  pleas- 
ant, and  thrice  pleasant  shade  !  with  my  parting 
thanks  for  many  a  heavy  hour  of  life  lightened 
by  thy  harmless  extravaganzas,  public  or  domes- 
tic. 

Rhadamanthus,  who  tries  the  lighter  causes 
below,  leaving  to  his  two  brothers  the  heavy 
calendars, — honest  Rhadamanth,  always  partial 
to  players,  weighing  their  parti-colored  existence 


Co  tbe  Sba^e  ot  JElllston.  309 

here  upon  earth, — making  account  of  the  few 
foibles,  that  may  have  shaded  thy  real  life,  as  we 
call  it  (though,  substantially,  scarcely  less  a  vapor 
than  thy  idlest  vagaries  upon  the  boards  of 
Drury),  as  but  of  so  many  echoes,  natural  reper- 
cussions, and  results  to  be  expected  from  the  as- 
sumed extravagances  of  thy  secondary  or  mock 
life,  nightly  upon  a  stage — after  a  lenient  castiga- 
tion,  with  rods  lighter  than  of  those  Medusean 
ringlets,  but  just  enough  to  **  whip  the  offending 
Adam  out  of  thee,"  shall  courteously  dismiss  thee 
at  the  right-hand  gate — the  O.  P.  side  of  Hades 
— that  conducts  to  masks  and  merry-makings  in 
the  Theatre  Royal  of  Proserpine. 

PLAUDITO,    ET  VALETO. 


ELLISTONIANA, 


]VIy  acquaintance  with   the  pleasant  creature, 
whose  loss  we  all  deplore,   was   but  slight.      My 

first    introduction    to    E ,    which    afterwards 

ripened  into  an  acquaintance  a  little  on  this  side  of 
intimacy,  was  over  a  counter  in  the  Leamington 
Spa  Library,  then  newly  entered  upon  by  a  branch 

of  his  family.     E ,  whom  nothing  misbecame 

— to  auspicate,  I  suppose,  the  filial  concern,  and 
set  it  a-going  with  a  lustre, — was  serving  in 
person  two  damsels  fair,  who  had  come  into  the 
shop  ostensibly  to  inquire  for  some  new  publica- 
tion, but  in  reality  to  have  a  sight  of  the  illus- 
trious shopman,  hoping  some  conference.  With 
what  an  air  did  he  reach  down  the  volume,  dis- 
passionately giving  his  opinion  of  the  worth  of 
the  work  in  question,  and  launching  out  into  a 
dissertation  on  its  comparative  merits  with  those 
of  certain  publications  of  a  similar  stamp,  its 
rivals  !  his  enchanted  customers  fairly  hanging 
on  his  lips,  subdued  to  their  authoritative  sen- 
tence. So  have  I  seen  a  gentleman  in  comedy, 
acting  the  shopman.  So  Lovelace  sold  his  gloves 
in  King  Street.  I  admired  the  histrionic  art  by 
which  he  contrived  to  carry  clean  away  every 
notion  of  disgrace,  from  the  occupation  he  had  so 
generously  submitted  to  ;   and  from   that  hour  I 


BUistontana.  311 

judged  him,  with  no  after-repentance,  to  be  a 
person  with  whom  it, would  be  a  felicity  to  be 
more  acquainted. 

To  descant  upon  his  merits  as  a  comedian 
would  be  superfluous.  With  his  blended  pri- 
vate and  professional  habits  alone  I  have  to  do  ; 
that  harmonious  fusion  of  the  manners  of  the 
player  into  those  of  every-day  life,  which  brought 
the  stage  boards  into  streets  and  dining-parlors, 
and  kept  up  the  play  when  the  play  was  ended. 
**I  like  Wrench,"  a  friend  was  saying  to  him  one 
day,  "  because  he  is  the  same  natural,  easy  crea- 
ture on  the  stage  that  he  is  offJ'  "My  case  ex- 
actly," retorted  EUiston, — with  a  charming  forget- 
fulness  that  the  converse  of  a  proposition  does 
not  always  lead  to  the  same  conclusion,  — ''  I  am 
the  same  person  o^the stage  that  I  am  071."  The 
inference,  at  first  sight,  seems  identical ;  but  ex- 
amine it  a  httle  and  it  confesses  only  that  the 
one  performer  was  never,  and  the  other  always, 
acting. 

And  in  truth  this  was  the  charm  of  Elliston's 
private  deportment  You  had  spirited  perform- 
ance always  going  on  before  your  eyes,  with 
nothing  to  pay.  As  where  a  monarch  takes  up 
his  casual  abode  for  a  night,  the  poorest  hovel 
which  he  honors  by  sleeping  in  it,  becomes  ipso 
facto  for  that  time  a  palace  ;  so  wherever  Elliston 
walked,  sat,  or  stood  still,  there  was  his  theatre. 
He  carried  about  with  him  his  pit,  boxes,  and 
galleries,  and  set  up  his  portable  playhouse  at 
corners  of  streets,  and  in  the  market-places. 
Upon  flintiest  pavements  he  trod  the  boards  still ; 
and  if  his  theme  chanced  to  be  passionate,  the 
green    baize   carpet    of    tragedy    spontaneously 


312  ISbs^^b  Of  JElin, 

rose  beneath  his  feet.  Now  this  was  hearty,  and 
showed  a  love  for  his  art.  So  Apelles  a/ways 
painted — in  thought.  So  G.  D.  always  poetizes. 
I  hate  a  lukewarm  artist.  I  have  known  actors — 
and  some  of  them  of  Elliston's  own  stamp — who 
shall  have  agreeably  been  amusing  you  in  the  part 
of  a  rake  or  a  coxcomb,  through  the  two  or  three 
hours  of  their  dramatic  existence;  but  no  sooner 
does  the  curtain  fall  with  its  leaden  clatter  but  a 
spirit  of  lead  seems  to  seize  on  all  their  faculties. 
They  emerge  sour,  morose  persons,  intolerable 
to  their  families,  servants,  etc.  Another  shall  have 
been  expanding  your  heart  with  generous  deeds 
and  sentiments,  till  it  even  beats  with  yearnings  of 
universal  sympathy  ;  you  absolutely  long  to  go 
home  and  do  some  good  action.  The  play  seems 
tedious,  till  you  can  get  fairly  out  of  the  house 
and  realize  your  laudable  intentions.  At  length 
the  final  bell  rings,  and  this  cordial  representative 
of  all  that  is  amiable  in  human  breasts  steps  forth 
— a  miser,  Elliston  was  more  of  a  piece.  Did 
he  play  Ranger.?  and  did  Ranger  fill  the  general 
bosom  of  the  town  with  satisfaction  }  why  should 
he  not  be  Ranger,  and  diffuse  the  same  cordial 
satisfaction  among  his  private  circles .''  with  his 
temperament,  /z/s  animal  spirits,  his  good  nature, 
his  follies  perchance,  could  he  do  better  than 
identify  himself  with  his  impersonations  }  Are 
we  to  like  a  pleasant  rake,  or  coxcomb,  on  the 
stage,  and  give  ourselves  airs  of  aversion  for  the 
identical  character  presented  to  us  in  actual  life.? 
or  what  would  the  performer  have  gained  by 
divesting  himself  of  the  impersonation }  Could 
the  man  Elliston  have  been  essentially  different 
from  his  part,  even  if  he  had   avoided  to  reflect 


3EUl0toniana,  313 

to  us  studiously,  in  private  circles,  the  airy  brisk- 
ness, the  forwardness,  and  scapegoat  trickeries 
of  his  prototype  ? 

' '  But  there  is  something  not  natural  in  this  ever- 
lasting acting ;  we  want  the  real  man." 

Are  you  quite  sure  it  is  not  the  man  himself, 
whom  you  cannot,  or  will  not  see,  under  some 
adventitious  trappings,  which,  nevertheless,  sit  not 
at  all  inconsistently  upon  him?  What  if  it  is  the 
nature  of  some  men  to  be  highly  artificial  ?  The 
fault  is  least  reprehensible  in  players.  Gibber  was 
his  own  Foppington,  with  almost  as  much  wit  as 
Vanbrugh  could  add  to  it. 

*'  My  conceit  of  his  person  " — it  is  Ben  Jonson 
speaking  of  Lord  Bacon — **was  never  increased 
towards  him  by  his  place  or  honors.  But  I  have, 
and  do  reverence  him  for  the  greatness  that  was 
only  proper  to  himself ;  in  that  he  seemed  to  me 
ever  one  of  the  greatest  men  that  had  been  in  many 
ages.  In  his  adversity  I  ever  prayed  that  Heaven 
would  give  him  strength  ;  for  greatness  he  could 
not  want." 

The  quality  here  commended  was  scarcely  less 
conspicuous  in  the  subject  of  these  idle  reminis- 
cences than  in  My  Lord  Verulam.  Those  who 
have  imagined  that  an  unexpected  elevation  to 
the  direction  of  a  great  London  theatre  affected 
the  consequence  of  Elliston,  or  at  all  changed  his 
nature,  knew  not  the  essential  greatness  of  the 
man  whom  they  disparage.  It  was  my  fortune 
to  encounter  him  near  St.  Dunstan's  Church 
(which,  with  its  punctual  giants,  is  now  no  more 
than  dust  and  a  shadow)  on  the  morning  of  his 
election  to  that  high  office.  Grasping  my  hand 
with   a   look   of  significance,    he   only   uttered : 


314  Bssagg  of  BUa» 

"  Have  you  heard  the  news  ?  " — then,  with  another 
look  following  up  the  blow,  he  subjoined,  "  I  am 
the  future  manager  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre." 
Breathless  as  he  saw  me,  he  stayed  not  for  con- 
gratulation or  reply,  but  mutely  stalked  away, 
leaving  me  to  chew  upon  his  new-blown  dignities 
at  leisure.  In  fact,  nothing  could  be  said  to  it. 
Expressive  silence  alone  could  muse  his  praise. 
This  was  his  great  style. 

But  was  he  less  great  (be  witness,  O  ye  powers 
of  equanimity,  that  supported  in  the  ruins  of 
Carthage  the  consular  exile,  and  more  recently 
transmuted,  for  a  more  illustrious  exile,  the 
barren  constableship  of  Elba  into  an  image  of 
imperial  France !)  when,  in  melancholy  after- 
years  again,  much  near  the  same  spot,  I  met 
him,  when  that  sceptre  had  been  wrested 
from  his  hand,  and  his  dominion  was  curtailed  to 
the  petty  managership  and  part  proprietorship,  of 
the  small  Olympic,  his  Elba  ?  He  still  played 
nightly  upon  the  boards  of  Drury,  but  in  parts, 
alas  !  allotted  to  him,  not  magnificently  distrib- 
uted by  him.  Waiving  his  great  loss  as  nothing, 
and  magnificently  sinking  the  sense  of  fallen 
material  grandeur  in  the  more  liberal  resentment 
of  depreciations  done  to  his  more  lofty  intellectual 
pretensions,  "Have  you  heard"  (his  customary 
exordium) — "have  you  heard,"  said  he,  "how 
they  treat  me  ?  they  put  me  in  comedy.'' 
Thought  I — but  his  finger  on  his  lips  forbade  any 
verbal  interruption — "  where  could  they  have  put 
you  better."  Then,  after  a  pause — "Where  I 
formerly  played  Romeo  I  now  play  Mercutio," — 
and  so  again  he  stalked  away,  neither  staying 
nor  caring  for  response. 


Bllistonfana, 

Oh,  it  was  a  rich  scene  ;  but  Sir  A- 


315 


the  best  of  story-tellers  and  surgeons,  who  mends 
a  lame  narrative  almost  as  well  as  he  sets  a  fract- 
ure, alone  could  do  justice  to  it — that  I  was  a 
witness  to,  in  the  tarnished  room  (that  had  once 
been  green)  of  that  same  little  Olympic.  There, 
after  his  deposition  from  Imperial  Drury,  he  sub- 
stituted a  throne.  That  Olympic  Hill  was  his 
"highest  heaven  "  ;  himself  "Jove  in  his  chair." 
There  he  sat  in  state,  while  before  him,  on  com- 
plaint of  prompter,  was  brought  for  judgment — 
how  shall  I  describe  her.^ — one  of  those  little 
tawdry  things  that  flirt  at  the  tails  of  choruses — 
a  probationer  for  the  town,  in  either  of  its  senses 
— the  pertest  little  drab — a  dirty  fringe  and 
appendage  of  the  lamp's  smoke,  who,  it  seems, 
on  some  disapprobation  expressed  by  a  "highly 
respectable  "  audience — had  precipitately  quitted 
her  station  on  the  boards,  and  withdrawn  her 
small  talents  in  disgust. 

"And  how  dare  you,"  said  her  manager,  as- 
suming a  censorial  severity  which  would  have 
crushed  the  confidence  of  a  Vestris,  and  disarmed 
that  beautiful  Rebel  herself  of  her  professional 
caprices — I  verily  believe  he  thought  Aer  standing 
before  him — "how  dare  you.  Madam,  withdraw 
yourself,  without  a  notice,  from  your  theatrical 
duties.?"  "I  was  hissed,  sir."  "And  you  have 
the  presumption  to  decide  upon  the  taste  of  the 
town  ?"  "I  don't  know,  sir,  but  I  will  never 
stand  to  be  hissed,"  was  the  subjoiner  of  young 
Confidence;  when,  gathering  up  his  features  into 
one  significant  mass  of  wonder,  pity,  and  expos- 
tulatory  indignation,  in  a  lesson  never  to  have 
been  lost  upon  a  creature  less  forward  than  she 


3i6  £ssas0  of  JElia. 

who  stood  before  him, — his  words  were  these  : 
**  they  have  hissed  me.'' 

Twas  the  identical  argument  a  fortiori  which 
the  son  of  Peleus  uses  to  Lycaon  trembling  under 
his  lance  to  persuade  him  to  take  his  destiny 
with  grace.  '*  I  too  am  mortal."  And  it  is  to  be 
believed  that  in  both  cases  the  rhetoric  missed  of 
its  application,  for  want  of  a  proper  understanding 
with  the  faculties  of  the  respective  recipients. 

"Quite  an  opera  pit,"  he  said  to  me,  as  he  was 
courteously  conducting  me  over  the  benches  of 
his  Surrey  Theatre,  the  last  retreat  and  recess  of 
his  every-day  waning  grandeur. 

Those  who  knew  Elliston  will  know  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  pronounced  the  latter  sentence 
of  the  few  words  I  am  about  to  record.  One 
proud  day  to  me  he  took  his  roast  mutton  with 
us  in  the  Temple,  to  which  I  had  superadded  a 
preliminary  haddock.  After  a  rather  plentiful 
partaking  of  the  meagre  banquet,  not  unrefreshed 
with  the  humbler  sort  of  liquors,  I  made  a  sort  of 
apology  for  the  humility  of  the  fare,  observing 
that  for  my  own  part  I  never  ate  but  one  dish  for 
dinner.  "  I,  too,  never  eat  but  one  thing  at  din- 
ner," was  his  reply  ;  then,  after  a  pause,  "reckon- 
ing fish  as  nothing."  The  manner  was  all.  It 
was  as  if  by  one  peremptory  sentence  he  had 
decreed  the  annihilation  of  all  the  savory  escu- 
lents which  the  pleasant  and  nutritious  food-giving 
ocean  pours  forth  upon  poor  humans  from  her 
watery  bosom.  This  \\ 2,^ greatness  tempered  with 
considerate /ew^erwess  to  the  feelings  of  his  scanty 
but  welcoming  entertainer. 

Great  wert  thou  in  thy  life,  Robert  William  Ellis- 
ton  !   and    not  lesse?ied    in    thy   death,    if   report 


BlKstontana,  317 

speak  truly,  which  says  that  thou  didst  direct  that 
thy  immortal  remains  should  repose  under  no 
inscription  but  one  of  pure  Latinity.  Classical 
was  thy  bringing  up  !  and  beautiful  was  the  feel- 
ing on  thy  last  bed,  which,  connecting  the  man 
with  the  boy,  took  thee  back  to  thy  latest  exercise 
of  imagination  to  the  days  when,  undreaming  of 
Theatres  and  Managerships,  thou  wert  a  scholar, 
and  an  early  ripe  one,  under  the  roofs  builded 
by  the  munificent  and  pious  Colet.  For  thee  the 
Pauline  Muses  weep.  In  elegies  that  shall 
silence  this  crude  prose,  they  shall  celebrate  thy 
praise. 


THE  OLD  MARGATE  HOY. 


I  AM  fond  of  passing  my  vacation  (I  believe  I 
have  said  so  before)  at  one  or  other  of  the  Uni- 
versities. Next  to  these  my  choice  would  fix  me 
at  some  woody  spot,  such  as  the  neighborhood  of 
Henley  affords  in  abundance  on  the  banks  of  my 
beloved  Thames.  But  somehow  or  other  my 
cousin  contrives  to  w^heedle  me,  once  in  three  or 
four  seasons,  to  a  watering-place.  Old  attach- 
ments cling  to  her  in  spite  of  experience.  We 
have  been  dull  at  Worthing  one  summer,  duller 
at  Brighton  another,  dullest  at  Eastbourn  a  third, 
and  are  at  this  moment  doing  dreary  penance  at 
— Hastings !  and  all  because  we  were  happy 
many  years  ago  for  a  brief  week  at  Margate, 
That  was  our  first  seaside  experiment,  and  many 
circumstances  combine  to  make  it  the  most 
agreeable  holiday  of  my  life.  We  had  neither  of 
us  seen  the  sea,  and  we  had  never  been  from 
home  so  long  together  in  company. 

Can  I  forget  thee,  thou  old  JNIargate  Hoy,  with 
thy  weather-beaten,  sunburnt  captain,  and  his 
rough  accommodations,  ill  exchanged  for  the  fop- 
pery and  freshwater  niceness  of  the  modern  steam- 
packet  ?  To  the  winds  and  waves  thou  commit- 
test  thy  goodly  freightage,  and  didst  ask  no  aid  of 
magic  fumes,  and  spells,  and  boiling  caldrons. 
Wifh  the  gales  of  heaven  thou  wentest  swim- 
318 


^be  Oit>  /iftaraate  Iboy.  319 

mingly ;  or,  when  it  was  their  pleasure,  stoodest 
still  with  sailor-like  patience,  lliy  course  was 
natural,  not  forced  as  in  a  hot-bed ;  nor  didst 
thou  go  poisoning  the  breath  of  ocean  w^ith  sul- 
phurous smoke,  a  great  sea  chimera,  chimneying 
and  furnacing  the  deep  ;  or  liker  to  that  fire-god 
parching  up  Scamander. 

Can  I  forget  thy  honest,  yet  slender  crew,  with 
their  coy,  reluctant  responses  (yet  to  the  suppres- 
sion of  anything  like  contempt)  to  the  raw  ques- 
tions, which  we  of  the  great  city  would  be  ever 
and  anon  putting  to  them,  as  to  the  uses  of  this 
or  that  strange  naval  implement  ?  'Specially  can 
I  forget  thee,  thou  happy  medium,  thou  shade  of 
refuge  between  us  and  them,  conciliating  inter- 
preter of  their  skill  to  our  simplicity,  comfortable 
ambassador  between  sea  and  land  ! — whose  sailor- 
trousers  did  not  more  convincingly  assure  thee  to 
be  an  adopted  denizen  of  the  former,  than  thy 
white  cap,  and  whiter  apron  over  them,  with  thy 
neat-figured  practice  in  thy  culinary  vocation, 
bespoke  thee  to  have  been  of  inland  nurture  here- 
tofore,— a  master  cook  of  Eastcheap  ?  How  busily 
didst  thou  ply  thy  multifarious  occupation — cook, 
mariner,  attendant,  chamberlain  ;  here,  there,  like 
another  Ariel,  flaming  at  once  about  all  parts  of 
the  deck,  yet  with  kindlier  ministrations, — not  to 
assist  the  tempest,  but,  as  if  touched  with  a  kin- 
dred sense  of  our  infirmities,  to  soothe  the  qualms 
which  that  untried  motion  might  haply  raise  in 
our  crude  land-fancies.  And  when  the  o'erwash- 
ing  billows  drove  us  below  deck  (for  it  was  far 
gone  in  October,  and  we  had  stiff  and  blowing 
weather),  how  did  thy  officious  ministerings, 
still  catering  for   our  comfort,    with   cards,    and 


320  B05315S  ot  Blla. 

cordials,  and  thy  more  cordial  conversation, 
alleviate  the  closeness  and  the  confinement  of 
thy  else  (truth  to  say)  not  very  savory,  nor  very 
inviting,  little  cabin. 

With  these  additaments  to  boot,  we  had  on 
board  a  fellow-passenger,  whose  discourses  in 
verity  might  have  beguiled  a  longer  voyage 
than  we  'meditated,  and  have  made  mirth  and 
wonder  abound  as  far  as  the  Azores.  He  was 
a  dark,  Spanish-complexioned  young  man,  re- 
markably handsome,  with  an  officer-Hke  assur- 
ance, and  an  insuppressible  volubility  of  assertion. 
He  was,  in  fact,  the  greatest  liar  I  have  met  with 
then,  or  since.  He  was  none  of  your  hesitating, 
half  story-tellers  (a  most  painful  description 
of  mortals)  who  go  on  sounding  your  belief, 
and  only  giving  you  as  much  as  they  see 
you  can  swallow  at  a  time — the  nibbling  pick- 
pockets of  your  patience, — but  one  who  com- 
mitted downright,  daylight  depredations  upon 
his  neighbor's  faith.  He  did  not  stand  shivering 
upon  the  brink,  but  was  a  hearty,  thorough- 
paced liar,  and  plunged  at  once  into  the  depths 
of  your  credulity.  I  partly  believe,  he  made 
pretty  sure  of  his  company.  Not  many  rich, 
not  many  wise,  or  learned,  composed  at  that 
time  the  common  stowage  of  a  Margate  packet. 
We  were,  I  am  afraid,  a  set  of  as  unseasoned 
Londoners  (let  our  enemies  give  it  a  worse  name) 
as  Aldermanbury,  or  Watling  Street,  at  that 
time  of  day,  could  have  supplied.  There  might 
be  an  exception  or  two  among  us,  but  I  scorn  to 
make  any  invidious  distinctions  among  such  a 
jolly,  companionable  ship's  company  as  those 
were  whom  I  sailed  with.     Some  thing  too  must 


tTbe  ©ID  ^ar^ate  Ibo^.  321 

be  conceded  to  the  genius  loci.  Had  the  confi- 
dent fellow  told  us  half  the  legends  on  land, 
which  he  had  favored  us  with  on  the  other  ele- 
ment, I  flatter  myself  the  good  sense  of  most 
of  us  would  have  revolted.  But  we  were  in  a 
new  world,  with  every  thing  unfamiliar  about 
us,  and  the  time  and  place  disposed  us  to  the 
reception  of  any  prodigious  marvel  whatsoever. 
Time  has  obliterated  from  my  memory  much  of 
his  wild  fablings  ;  and  the  rest  would  appear 
but  dull,  as  written,  and  to  be  read  on  shore. 
He  had  been  aide-de-camp  (among  other  rare 
accidents  and  fortunes)  to  a  Persian  prince,  and 
at  one  blow  had  stricken  off  the  head  of  the 
King  of  Carimania  on  horseback.  He,  of  course, 
married  the  prince's  daughter.  I  forget  what 
unlucky  turn  in  the  politics  of  that  court,  com- 
bining with  the  loss  of  his  consort,  was  the 
reason  of  his  quitting  Persia ;  but,  with  the 
rapidity  of  a  magician,  he  transported  himself, 
along  with  his  hearers,  back  to  England,  where 
w^e  still  found  him  in  the  confidence  of  great 
ladies.  There  was  some  story  of  a  princess — ■ 
Elizabeth,  if  I  remember — having  intrusted  to  his 
care  an  extraordinary  casket  of  jewels,  upon  some 
extraordinary  occasion — but,  as  I  am  not  certain 
of  the  name  or  circumstance  at  this  distance  of 
time,  I  must  leave  it  to  the  royal  daughters  of 
England  to  settle  the  honor  among  themselves  in 
private.  I  cannot  call  to  mind  half  his  pleasant 
wonders  ;  but  I  perfectly  remember,  that  in  the 
course  of  his  travels  he  had  seen  a  phoenix  ; 
and  he  obligingly  undeceived  us  of  the  vulgar 
error,  that  there  is  but  one  of  that  species  at 
a  time,  assuring  us  that  they  were  not  un- 
21 


322  Bssags  of  ;6l(a. 

common  in  some  parts  of  Upper  Egypt.  Hither- 
to he  had  found  the  most  implicit  listeners. 
His  dreaming  fancies  had  transported  us  be- 
yond the  "  ignorant  present."  But  when  (still 
hardying  more  and  more  in  his  triumphs  over 
our  simplicity)  he  went  on  to  affirm  that  he 
had  actually  sailed  through  the  legs  of  the  Col- 
ossus at  Rhodes,  it  really  became  necessary  to 
make  a  stand.  And  here  I  must  do  justice  to  the 
good  sense  and  intrepidity  of  one  of  our  party,  a 
youth,  that  had  hitherto  been  one  of  his  most 
deferential  auditors,  who,  from  his  recent  reading, 
made  bold  to  assure  the  gentleman  that  there 
must  be  some  mistake,  as  "  the  Colossus  in  ques- 
tion had  been  destroyed  long  since  "  ;  to  whose 
opinion,  delivered  with  all  modesty,  our  hero  was 
obliging  enough  to  concede  thus  much,  that  "the 
figure  was  indeed  a  little  damaged."  This  was 
the  only  opposition  he  met  with,  and  it  did  not  at 
all  seem  to  stagger  him,  for  he  proceeded  with 
his  fables,  which  the  same  youth  appeared  to 
swallow  with  more  complacency  than  ever, — 
confirmed,  as  it  were,  by  the  extreme  candor 
of  that  concession.  With  these  prodigies  he 
wheedled  us  on  till  we  came  in  sight  of  Reculvers, 
which  one  of  our  own  conipany  (having  been  the 
voyage  before)  immediately  recognizing,  and 
pointing  out  to  us,  was  considered  by  us  as  no 
ordinary  seaman. 

All  this  time  sat  upon  the  edge  of  the  deck 
quite  a  different  character.  It  was  a  lad  appar- 
ently very  poor,  very  infirm,  and  very  patient. 
His  eye  was  ever  on  the  sea,  with  a  smile  ;  and 
if  he  caught  now  and  then  some  snatches  of 
these  wild  legends,  it  v/as  by  accident,  and  they 


^be  ©ID  /Rargate  Ibo^,  323 

seemed  not  to  concern  him.  The  waves  to  him 
whispered  more  pleasant  stories.  He  was  as  one, 
being  with  us,  but  not  of  us.  He  heard  the  bell 
of  dinner  ring  without  stirring  ;  and  when  some 
of  us  pulled  out  our  private  stores,  our  cold  meat 
and  our  salads, — he  produced  none  and  seemed 
to  want  none.  Only  a  solitary  biscuit  he  had 
laid  in  ;  provision  for  the  one  or  two  days  and 
nights,  to  which  these  vessels  then  were  often- 
times obliged  to  prolong  their  voyage.  Upon  a 
nearer  acquaintance  with  him,  which  he  seemed 
neither  to  court  nor  decline,  we  learned  that  he 
was  going  to  Margate,  with  the  hope  of  being 
admitted  into  the  infirmary  there  for  sea-bathing. 
His  disease  was  a  scrofula,  which  appeared  to 
have  eaten  all  over  him.  He  expressed  great 
hopes  of  a  cure,  and  when  we  asked  him  whether 
he  had  any  friends  where  he  was  going,  he  re- 
plied, "he  had  no  friends." 

These  pleasant  and  some  mournful  passages 
with  the  first  sight  of  the  sea,  co-operating  with 
youth,  and  a  sense  of  holidays,  and  out-of-door  ad- 
venture, to  me  that  had  been  pent  up  in  populous 
cities  for  many  months  before, — have  left  upon 
my  mind  the  fragrance  as  of  summer  days  gone 
by,  bequeathing  nothing  but  their  remembrance 
for  cold  and  wintry  hours  to  chew  upon. 

Will  it  be  thought  a  digression  (it  may  spare 
some  unwelcome  comparisons)  if  I  endeavor  to 
account  for  the  dis  satis  faction  which  I  have  heard 
so  many  persons  confess  to  have  felt  (as  I  did 
myself  feel  in  part  on  this  occasion)  at  the  sight  of 
the  sea  for  the  first  time  ?  I  think  the  reason 
usually  given — referring  to  the  incapacity  of  act- 
ual objects  for  satisfying  our  preconceptions  of 


324  Bssa^s  ot  jeifa. 

them — scarcely  goes  deep  enough  into  the  ques- 
tion. Let  the  same  person  see  a  lion,  an  ele- 
phant, a  mountain,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life, 
and  he  shall  perhaps  feel  himself  a  little  morti- 
fied. The  things  do  not  fill  up  that  space,  which 
the  idea  of  them  seemed  to  take  up  in  his  mind. 
But  they  have  still  a  correspondency  to  his  first 
notion,  and  in  time  grow  up  to  it,  so  as  to  pro- 
duce a  very  similar  impression  ;  enlarging  them- 
selves (if  I  may  say  so)  upon  familiarity.  But 
the  sea  remains  a  disappointment.  Is  it  not,  that 
in  ike  latter  we  had  expected  to  behold  (absurdly, 
I  grant,  but,  I  am  afraid,  by  the  law  of  imagina- 
tion, unavoidably)  not  a  definite  object,  as  those 
wild  beasts,  or  that  mountain  compassable  by 
the  eye,  but  all  the  sea  at  once,  the  commensurate 

ANTAGONIST    OF  THE    EARTH  ?       I  do    UOt    Say  WC    tell 

ourselves  so  much,  but  the  craving  of  the  mind 
is  to  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less.  I  will  sup- 
pose the  case  of  a  young  person  of  fifteen  (as  I 
then  was)  knowing  nothing  of  the  sea,  but  from 
description.  He  comes  to  it  for  the  first  time, — 
all  that  he  has  been  reading  of  it  all  his  life,  and 
that  the  most  enthusiastic  part  of  life, — all  he  has 
gathered  from  narratives  of  wandering  seamen, — 
what  he  has  gained  from  true  voyages,  and  what 
he  cherishes  as  credulously  from  romance  and 
poetry, — crowding  their  images,  and  exacting 
strange  tributes  from  expectation.  He  thinks  of 
the  great  deep,  and  of  those  who  go  down  unto 
it ;  of  its  thousand  isles,  and  of  the  vast  conti- 
nents it  washes  ;  of  its  receiving  the  mighty  Plate, 
or  Orellana,  into  its  bosom,  without  disturbance, 
or  sense  of  augmentation  ;  of  Biscay  swells  and 
the  mariner,  • 


Zhc  ©ID  /IBarQate  1bo^.  325 

For  many  a  day,  and  many  a  dreadful  night, 
Incessant  laboring  round  the  stormy  Cape  ; 

of  fatal  rocks,  and  the  *' still-vexed  Bermoothes  "; 
of  great  whirlpools,  and  the  water-spout  ;  of 
sunken  ships,  and  sunless  treasures  swallowed  up 
in  the  unrestoring  depths  ;  of  fishes  and  quaint 
monsters,  to  which  all  that  is  terrible  on  earth 

Be  but  as  buggs  to  frighten  babes  withal, 
Compared  with  the  creatures  in  the  sea's  entral ; 

of  naked  savages,  and  Juan  Fernandez  ;  of  pearls, 
and  shells  ;  of  coral  beds,  and  of  enchanted  isles  ; 
of  mermaids'  grots — 

I  do  not  assert  that  in  sober  earnest  he  expects 
to  be  shown  all  these  wonders  at  once,  but  he  is 
under  the  tyranny  of  a  mighty  faculty,  which 
haunts  him  with  confused  hints  and  shadows  of  all 
these  ;  and  when  the  actual  object  opens  first  unto 
him,  seen  (in  tame  weather  too,  most  likely)  from 
our  unromantic  coasts, — a  speck,  a  slip  of  sea- 
water,  as  it  shows  to  him, — what  can  it  prove  but 
a  very  unsatisfying  and  even  diminutive  entertain- 
ment ?  Or  if  he  has  come  to  it  from  the  mouth  of 
a  river,  was  it  much  more  than  the  river  widening  ? 
and,  even  out  of  sight  of  land,  what  had  he  but  a 
fiat  watery  horizon  about  him,  nothing  comparable 
to  the  vast  o'er-curtaining  sky,  his  familiar  object, 
seen  daily  without  dread  or  amazement  ?  Who, 
in  similar  circumstances,  has  not  been  tempted 
to  exclaim  with  Charoba,    in  the  poem  of  Gebir  : 

Is  this  the  mighty  ocean  ?  is  this  a//  ? 

I  love  town,  or   country  ;  but  this    detestable 


326  lB66a^3  ot  :i6lia. 

Cinque  Port  is  neither.  I  hate  these  scrubbed 
shoots,  thrusting  out  their  starved  foHage  from 
between  the  horrid  fissures  of  dusty  innutritious 
rocks  ;  which  the  amateur  calls  "  verdure  to  the 
edge  of  the  sea."  I  require  woods,  and  they 
show  me  stunted  coppices.  I  cry  out  for  the 
water-brooks,  and  pant  for  fresh  streams,  and 
inland  murmurs.  I  cannot  stand  all  day  on  the 
naked  beach,  watching  the  capricious  hues  of 
the  sea,  shifting  like  the  colors  of  a  dying  mullet. 
I  am  tired  of  looking  out  at  the  windows  of  this 
island-prison.  I  would  fain  retire  into  the  inte- 
rior of  my  cage.  While  I  gaze  upon  the  sea,  I 
want  to  be  on  it,  over  it,  across  it.  It  binds  me 
in  with  chains,  as  of  iron.  IMy  thoughts  are 
abroad.  I  should  not  so  feel  in  Staffordshire. 
There  is  no  home  forme  here.  There  is  no  sense 
of  home  at  Hastings.  It  is  a  place  of  fugitive 
resort,  a  heterogeneous  assemblage  of  sea-mews 
and  stock-brokers.  Amphitrites  of  the  town,  and 
misses  that  coquet  with  the  ocean.  If  it  were 
what  it  was  in  its  primitive  shape,  and  what  it 
ought  to  have  remained,  a  fair,  honest  fishing- 
town,  and  no  more,  it  was  something  ; — with  a 
few  straggling  fishermen's  huts  scattered  about, 
artless  as  its  cliffs,  and  with  their  materials  filched 
from  them,  it  was  something.  I  could  abide  to 
dwell  with  IMeshech  ;  to  assort  with  fisherswains, 
and  smugglers.  There  are,  or  I  dream  there  are, 
many  of  this  latter  occupation  here.  Their  faces 
become  the  place.  I  like  a  smuggler.  He  is  the 
only  honest  thief.  He  robs  nothing  but  the  rev- 
enue,— an  abstraction  I  never  greatly  cared  about. 
I  could  go  out  with  them  in  their  mackerel  boats, 
or  about  their  less  ostensible  business,  with  some 


Zbc  ©ID  Margate  1bo\>.  327 

satisfaction.  I  can  even  tolerate  those  poor 
victims  to  monotony,  who  from  day  to  day  pace 
along-  the  beach,  in  endless  progress  and  recur- 
rence, to  watch  their  illicit  countrymen,  townsfolk 
or  brethren  perchance, — whistling  to  the  sheathing 
and  unsheathing  of  their  cutlasses  (their  only 
solace),  who,  under  the  mild  name  of  preventive 
service,  keep  up  a  legitimated  civil  warfare  in  the 
deplorable  absence  of  a  foreign  one,  to  show  their 
detestation  of  run  hollands,  and  zeal  for  Old  Eng- 
land. But  it  is  the  visitants  from  town,  that  come 
here  to  say  that  they  have  been  here,  with  no 
more  relish  of  the  sea  than  a  pond  perch  or  a  dace 
might  be  supposed  to  have,  that  are  my  aversion. 
I  feel  like  a  foolish  dace  in  these  regions,  and  have 
as  little  toleration  for  myself  here  as  for  them. 
What  can  they  want  here  ?  if  they  had  a  true  rel- 
ish of  the  ocean,  why  have  they  brought  all  this 
land  luggage  with  them  ?  or  why  pitch  their  civil- 
ized tents  in  the  desert  ?  What  mean  these  scanty 
book-rooms — marine  libraries  as  they  entitle  them 
— if  the  sea  were,  as  they  would  have  us  believe, 
a  book  "to  read  strange  matter  in.?"  what  are 
their  foolish  concert-rooms,  if  they  come,  as  they 
would  fain  be  thought  to  do,  to  listen  to  the  music 
of  the  waves  ?  All  is  false  and  hollow  pretension. 
They  come,  because  it  is  the  fashion,  and  to  spoil 
the  nature  of  the  place.  They  are,  mostly,  as  I 
have  said,  stock-brokers  ;  but  I  have  watched  the 
better  sort  of  them, — now  and  then,  an  honest 
citizen  (of  the  old  stamp),  in  the  simplicity  of  his 
heart,  shall  bring  down  his  wife  and  daughters, 
to  taste  the  sea  breezes.  I  always  know  the  date 
of  their  arrival.  It  is  easy  to  see  it  in  their  counte- 
nance.    A  day  or  two  they  go  wandering  on  the 


328  B56as5  ot  jEUa. 

shingles,  picking  up  cockle-shells,  and  thinking 
them  great  things  ;  but,  in  a  poor  week,  imagina- 
tion slackens  ;  they  begin  to  discover  that  cockles 
produce  no  pearls,  and  then — O  then  ! — if  I  could 
interpret  for  the  pretty  creatures  (I  know  they 
have  not  the  courage  to  confess  it  themselves), 
how  gladly  would  they  exchange  their  seaside 
rambles  for  a  Sunday-walk  on  the  greensward  of 
their  accustomed  Twickenham  meadows  ! 

I  would  ask  of  one  of  these  sea-charmed  emi- 
grants, who  think  they  truly  love  the  sea,  with  its 
wild  usages,  what  would  their  feelings  be,  if  some 
of  the  unsophisticated  aborigines  of  this  place, 
encouraged  by  their  courteous  questionings  here, 
should  venture  on  the  faith  of  such  assured  sym- 
pathy between  them,  to  return  the  visit,  and  come 
up  to  see — London.  I  must  imagine  then\  with 
their  fishing-tackle  on  their  back,  as  we  carry 
our  town  necessaries.  What  a  sensation  would 
it  cause  in  Lothbury.  What  vehement  laughter 
would  it  not  excite  among 

The  daughters  of  Cheapside,  and  wives  of  Lombard  .Street  ! 

I  am  sure  that  no  town-bred  or  inland-born 
subjects  can  feel  their  true  and  natural  nourish- 
ment at  these  sea-places.  Nature,  where  she 
does  not  mean  us  for  mariners  and  vagabonds, 
bids  us  stay  at  home.  The  salt  foam  seems  to 
nourish  a  spleen.  I  am  not  half  so  good-natured 
as  by  the  milder  waters  of  my  natural  river.  I 
would  exchange  these  sea-gulls  for  swans,  and 
scud  a  swallow  forever  about  the  banks  o£ 
Thamesis. 


THE  CONVALESCENT. 


A  PRETTY  severe  fit  of  indisposition  which,  under 
the  name  of  a  nervous  fever,  has  made  a  prisoner 
of  me  for  some  weeks  past,  and  is  but  slowly- 
leaving  me,  has  reduced  me  to  an  incapacity  of 
reflecting  upon  any  topic  foreign  to  itself.  Ex- 
pect no  healthy  conclusions  from  me  this  month, 
reader  ;  I  can  offer  you  only  sick  men's  dreams. 

And  truly  the  whole  state  of  sickness  is  such  ; 
for  what  else  is  it  but  a  magnificent  dream  for 
a  man  to  lie  a-bed,  and  draw  daylight  curtains 
about  him  ;  and,  shutting  out  the  sun,  to  induce 
a  total  oblivion  of  all  the  works  which  are  going 
on  under  it?  To  become  insensible  to  all  the 
operations  of  life,  except  the  beatings  of  one 
feeble  pulse? 

If  there  be  a  regal  solitude,  it  is  a  sick-bed. 
How  the  patient  lords  it  there  ;  what  caprices  he 
acts  without  control !  how  king-like  he  sways  his 
pillow — tumbling,  and  tossing,  and  shifting,  and 
lowering,  and  thumping,  and  flatting,  and  mould- 
ing it,  to  the  ever-varying  requisitions  of  his  throb- 
bing temples. 

He  changes  sides  often er  than  a  politician. 
Now  he  lies  full  length,  then  half  length,  obliquely, 
transversely,  head  and  feet  quite  across  the  bed  ; 
and  none  accuses  him  of  tergiversation.     Within 

329 


330  J660ai20  of  Blia, 

the  four  curtains  he  is  absolute.  They  are  his 
Mare  Clausum. 

How  sickness  enlarges  the  dimensions  of  a 
man's  self  to  himself!  he  is  his  own  exclusive 
object.  Supreme  selfishness  is  inculcated  upon 
him  as  his  only  duty.  T  is  the  Two  Tables  of 
the  Law  to  him.  He  has  nothing  to  think  of  but 
how  to  get  well.  What  passes  out  of  doors,  or 
within  them,  so  he  hear  not  the  jarring  of  them, 
affects  him  not. 

A  little  while  ago  he  was  greatly  concerned  in 
the  event  of  a  lawsuit,  which  was  to  be  the  mak- 
ing or  the  marring  of  his  dearest  friend.  He  was 
to  be  seen  trudging  about  upon  this  man's  errand 
to  fifty  quarters  of  the  town  at  once,  jogging  this 
witness,  refreshing  that  solicitor.  The  cause  was 
to  come  on  yesterday.  He  is  absolutely  as  indif- 
ferent to  the  decision,  as  if  it  were  a  question  to 
be  tried  at  Pekin.  Peradventure  from  some 
whispering  going  on  about  the  house,  not  in- 
tended for  his  hearing,  he  picks  up  enough  to 
make  him  understand,  that  things  went  cross- 
grained  in  the  Court  yesterday,  and  his  friend  is 
ruined.  But  the  word  ''friend,"  and  the  word 
"ruin,"  disturbed  him  no  more  than  so  much 
jargon.  He  is  not  to  think  of  any  thing  but  how 
to  get  better. 

What  a  world  of  foreign  cares  are  merged  in 
that  absorbing  consideration  ! 

He  has  put  on  the  strong  armor  of  sickness,  he 
is  wrapped  in  the  callous  hide  of  suffering ;  he 
keeps  his  sympathy,  like  some  curious  vintage, 
under  trusty  lock  and  key,  for  his  own  use 
only. 

He  lies  pitying  himself,  honing  and  moaning  to 


Zbc  Convaleecent. 


33^ 


himself;  he  yearneth  over  himself;  his  bowels 
are  even  melted  within  him,  to  think  what  he 
suffers  ;  he  is  not  ashamed  to  weep  over  himself. 

He  is  forever  plotting  how  to  do  some  good  to 
himself ;  studying  little  stratagems  and  artificial 
alleviations. 

He  makes  the  most  of  himself ;  dividing  him- 
self, by  an  allowable  fiction,  into  as  many  dis- 
tinct individuals,  as  he  hath  sore  and  sorrowing 
members.  Sometimes  he  meditates — as  of  a 
thing  apart  from  him — upon  his  poor  aching  head, 
and  that  dull  pain  which,  dozing  or  waking,  lay 
in  it  all  the  past  night  like  a  log,  or  palpable  sub- 
stance of  pain,  not  to  be  removed  without  open- 
ing the  very  skull,  as  it  seemed,  to  take  it  thence. 
Or  he  pities  his  long,  clammy,  attenuated  fingers. 
He  compassionates  himself  all  over  ;  and  his  bed 
is  a  very  discipline  of  humanity,  and  tender 
heart. 

He  is  his  own  sympathizer  ;  and  instinctively 
feels  that  none  can  so  well  perform  that  office  for 
him.  He  cares  for  few  spectators  to  his  tragedy. 
Only  that  punctual  face  of  the  old  nurse  pleases 
him,  that  announces  his  broths  and  his  cordials. 
He  likes  it  because  it  is  so  unmoved,  and  because 
he  can  pour  forth  his  feverish  ejaculations  before 
it  as  unreservedly  as  to  his  bedpost. 

To  the  world's  business  he  is  dead.  He  under- 
stands not  what  the  callings  and  occupations  of 
mortals  are,  only  he  has  a  glimmering  conceit  of 
some  such  thing,  when  the  doctor  makes  his  daily 
call :  and  even  in  the  lines  on  that  busy  face  he 
reads  no  multiplicity  of  patients,  but  solely  con- 
ceives of  himself  as  /he  sick  yuan.  To  what  other 
uneasy  couch  the  good  man  is  hastening,  when 


332  B65a^6  ot  j£Ua. 

he  slips  out  of  his  chamber,  folding  up  his  thin 
douceur  so  carefully,  for  fear  of  rustling — is  no 
speculation  which  he  can  at  present  entertain. 
He  thinks  only  of  the  regular  return  of  the  same 
phenomenon  at  the  same  hour  to-morrow. 

Household  rumors  touch  him  not.  Some  faint 
murmur,  indicative  of  life  going  on  within  the 
house,  soothes  him,  while  he  knows  not  distinctly 
what  it  is.  He  is  not  to  know  any  thing,  not  to 
think  of  any  thing.  Servants  gliding  up  or  down 
the  distant  staircase,  treading  as  upon  velvet, 
gently  keep  his  ear  awake,  so  long  as  he  troubles 
not  himself  further  than  with  some  feeble  guess 
at  their  errands.  Exacter  knowledge  would  be  a 
burden  to  him ;  he  can  just  endure  the  pressure 
of  conjecture.  He  opens  his  eye  faintly  at  the 
dull  stroke  of  the  muffled  knocker,  and  closes  it 
again  without  asking  "Who  was  it.?"  He  is 
flattered  by  a  general  notion  that  inquiries  are 
making  after  him,  but  he  cares  not  to  know  the 
name  of  the  inquirer.  In  the  general  stillness, 
and  awful  hush  of  the  house,  he  lies  in  state,  and 
feels  his  sovereignty. 

To  be  sick  is  to  enjoy  monarchial  prerogatives. 
Compare  the  silent  tread,  and  quiet  ministry, 
almost  by  the  eye  only,  with  which  he  is  served 
— with  the  careless  demeanor,  the  unceremonious 
goings  in  and  out  (slapping  of  doors,  or  leaving 
them  open)  of  the  very  same  attendants,  when 
he  is  getting  a  little  better — and  you  will  confess, 
that  from  the  bed  of  sickness  (throne  let  me 
rather  call  it)  to  the  elbow-chair  of  convalescence, 
is  a  fall  from  dignity,  amounting  to  a  deposition. 

How  convalescence  shrinks  a  man  back  to  his 
pristine  stature  !  where  is  now  the  space  which 


Vubc  Convalescent.  333 

he  occupied  so  lately,  in  his  own,  in  the  fiimily  s 
eye? 

The  scene  of  his  regaUties,  his  sick-room, 
which  was  his  presence  chamber,  where  he  lay  and 
acted  his  despotic  fancies — how  is  it  reduced  to 
a  common  bed-room  !  The  trimness  of  the  very 
bed  has  something  petty  and  unmeaning  about 
it.  It  is  ??tade  every  day.  How  unlike  to  that 
wavy,  many-furrowed,  oceanic  surface,  which  it 
presented  so  short  a  time  since,  when  to  make 
it  was  a  service  not  to  be  thought  of  at  oftener 
than  three  or  four  day  revolutions,  when  the 
patient  was  with  pain  and  grief  to  be  lifted  for  a 
little  while  out  of  it,  to  submit  to  the  encroach- 
ments of  unwelcome  neatness,  and  decencies 
which  his  shaken  frame  deprecated ;  then  to  be 
lifted  into  it  again,  for  another  three  or  four  days' 
respite,  to  flounder  it  out  of  shape  again,  while 
every  fresh  furrow  was  an  historical  record  of 
some  shifting  posture,  some  uneasy  turning,  some 
seeking  for  a  little  ease  ;  and  the  shrunken  skin 
scarce  told  a  truer  story  thaii  the  crumpled  cover- 
lid. 

Hushed  are  those  mysterious  sighs — those 
groans — so  much  more  awful,  while  we  knew  not 
from  what  caverns  of  vast  hidden  suffering  they 
proceeded.  The  Lernean  pangs  are  quenched. 
The  riddle  of  sickness  is  solved  ;  and  Philoctetes 
is  become  an  ordinary  personage. 

Perhaps  some  relic  of  the  sick  man's  dream  of 
greatness  survives  in  the  still  lingering  visitations 
of  the  medical  attendant.  But  how  is  he,  too, 
changed  with  every  thing  else  !  Can  this  be  he 
■ — this  man  of  news — of  chat — of  anecdote — of 
every  thing  but  physic, — can  this  be  he,  who  so 
lately  came  between   the  patient   and  his  cruel 


334  iBssti^e  ot  ^lia. 

enemy,  as  on  some  solemn  embassy  from  Nature, 
erecting  herself  into  a  high  mediating  party  ? — - 
Pshaw  !  'tis  some  old  woman. 

Farewell  with  him  all  that  made  sickness  pom- 
pous— the  spell  that  hushed  the  household — the 
desert-like  stillness,  felt  throughout  its  inmost 
chambers — the  mute  attendants — the  inquiry  by 
looks — the  still  softer  delicacies  of  self-attention 
— the  sole  and  single  eye  of  distemper  alonely 
fixed  upon  itself — world  thoughts  excluded — the 
man  a  world  unto  himself — his  own  theatre, — 

What  a  speck  is  he  dwindled  into ! 

In  this  flat  swamp  of  convalescence,  left  by 
the  ebb  of  sickness,  yet  far  enough  from  the  terra 
firma  of  established  health,  your  note,  dear  Ed- 
itor, reached  me,  requesting — an  article.  In  Arti- 
culo  Mortis,  thought  I  ;  but  it  is  something  hard, 
— and  the  quibble,  wretched  as  it  was,  relieved 
me.  The  summons,  unseasonable  as  it  appeared, 
seemed  to  link  me  on  again  to  the  petty  business 
of  life,  which  I  had  lost  sight  of ;  a  gentle  call  to 
activity,  however  trivial ;  a  wholesome  weaning 
from  that  preposterous  dream  of  self-absorption — 
the  puffy  state  of  sickness — in  which  I  confess  to 
have  lain  so  long,  insensible  to  the  magazines 
and  monarchies  of  the  world  alike,  to  its  laws, 
and  to  its  literature.  The  hypochondriac  flatus 
is  subsiding  ;  the  acres,  which  in  imagination  I 
had  spread  over — for  the  sick  man  swells  in  the 
sole  contemplation  of  his  single  sufferings  till  he 
becomes  a  Tityus  to  himself — are  wasting  to  a 
span,  and  for  the  giant  of  self-importance,  which 
I  was  so  lately,  you  have  me  once  again  in  my 
natural  pretensions — the  lean  and  meagre  figure 
of  your  insignificant  Essayist. 


SANITY  OF  TRUE  GENIUS. 


So  far  from  the  position  holding  true,  that  great 
wit  (or  genius,  in  our  modern  way  of  speaking) 
has  a  necessary  alHance  with  insanity,  the  great- 
est wits,  on  the  contrary,  will  ever  be  found  to  be 
the  sanest  writers.  It  is  impossible  for  the  mind 
to  conceive  of  a  mad  Shakespeare.  The  great- 
ness of  wit,  by  which  the  poetic  talent  is  here 
chiefly  to  be  understood,  manifests  itself  in  the 
admirable  balance  of  all  the  faculties.  Madness 
is  the  disproportionate  straining  or  excess  of  any 
one  of  them.  "  So  strong  a  wit,"  says  Cowley, 
speaking  of  a  poetical  friend, 

" did  Nature  to  him  frame, 

At  all  things  but  his  judgment  overcame  ; 

His  judgment  like  the  heavenly  moon  did  show, 

Tempering  that  mighty  sea  below." 

The  ground  of  the  mistake  is,  that  men,  finding 
in  the  raptures  of  the  higher  poetry  a  condition  of 
exaltation,  to  which  they  have  no  parallel  in  their 
own  experience,  besides  the  spurious  resemblance 
of  it  in  dreams  and  fevers,  impute  a  state  of 
dreaminess  and  fever  to  the  poet.  But  the 
true  poet  dreams  being  awake.  He  is  not  pos- 
sessed by  his  subject,  but  has  dominion  over  it. 
In  the  groves  of  Eden  he  walks  familiar  as  in  his 

335 


336  :60sa^6  ot  jeiia. 

native  paths.  He  ascends  the  empyrean  heaven, 
and  is  not  intoxicated.  He  treads  the  burning 
marl  without  dismay ;  he  v/ings  his  fliglit,  with- 
out self-loss,  through  realms  of  chaos  "and  old 
night. "  Or,  if  abandoning  himself  to  that  severer 
chaos  of  a  "  human  mind  untuned,"  he  is  content 
awhile  to  be  mad  with  Lear,  or  to  hate  mankind 
(a  sort  of  madness)  with  Timon  ;  neither  is  that 
madness,  nor  this  misanthropy,  so  unchecked 
but  that — never  letting  the  reins  of  reason  wholly 
go,  while  most  he  seems  to  do  so — he  has  his  bet- 
ter genius  still  whispering  at  his  ear,  with  the 
good  servant  Kent  suggesting  saner  counsels,  or 
with  the  honest  steward  Flavins  recommending 
kindlier  resolutions.  Where  he  seems  most  to 
recede  from  humanity,  he  will  be  found  the  truest 
to  it.  From  beyond  the  scope  of  Nature,  if  he 
summon  possible  existences,  he  subjugates  them 
to  the  law  of  her  consistency.  He  is  beautifully 
loyal  to  that  sovereign  directress,  even  when  he 
appears  most  to  betray  and  desert  her.  His  ideal 
tribes  submit  to  policy  ;  his  very  monsters  are 
tamed  to  his  hand,  even  as  that  wild  seabrood, 
shepherded  by  Proteus.  He  tames  and  he  clothes 
them  with  attributes  of  flesh  and  blood  till  they 
wonder  at  themselves,  like  Indian  Islanders  forced 
to  submit  to  European  vesture.  Caliban,  the 
witches,  are  as  true  to  the  laws  of  their  own 
nature  (ours  with  a  difference)  as  Othello,  Ham- 
let, and  Macbeth.  Herein  the  great  and  the  lit- 
tle wits  are  differenced ;  that  if  the  latter  wander 
ever  so  little  from  nature  or  actual  existence,  they 
lose  .themselves  and  their  readers.  Their  phan- 
toms are  lawless  ;  their  visions  nightmares.  They 
do  not  create,   which  implies  shaping   and  con- 


Sanity  ot  ^rue  Genius,  337 

sistency.  Their  imaginations  are  not  active, — 
for  to  be  active  is  to  call  something-  into  act  and 
form, — but  passive,  as  men  in  sick  dreams.  For 
the  supernatural,  or  something  superadded  to 
what  we  know  of  nature,  they  give  you  the 
plainly  non-natural.  And  if  this  were  all,  and 
that  these  mental  hallucinations  were  discov- 
erable only  in  the  treatment  of  subjects  out 
of  nature,  or  transcending  it,  the  judgment  might 
with  some  plea  be  pardoned  if  it  ran  riot,  and  a 
little  wantonized  ;  but  even,  in  the  describing  of 
real  and  every-day  life,  that  which  is  before 
their  eyes,  one  of  these  lesser  wits  shall  more 
deviate  from  nature, — show  more  of  that  inconse- 
quence, which  has  a  natural  alliance  with  frenzy, 
— than  a  great  genius  in  his  "  maddest  fits, " 
as  Withers  somewhere  calls  them.  We  appeal 
to  any  one  that  is  acquainted  with  the  com- 
mon run  of  Lane's  novels, — as  they  existed  some 
twenty  or  thirty  years  back, — those  scanty  in- 
tellectual viands  of  the  whole  female  reading 
public,  till  a  happier  genius  arose  and  expelled  for- 
ever the  innutritions  phantoms, — whether  he  has 
not  found  his  brain  more  "  betossed,"  his  memory 
more  puzzled,  his  sense  of  when  and  where  more 
confounded,  among  the  improbable  events,  the 
incoherent  incidents,  the  inconsistent  characters, 
or  no  characters,  of  some  third-rate  love-intrigue, 
■ — where  the  persons  shall  be  a  Lord  Glendamour 
and  a  Miss  Rivers,  and  the  scene  only  alternate 
between  Bath  and  Bond  Street, — a  more  bewil- 
dering dreaminess  induced  upon  him  than  he  has 
felt  wandering  over  all  the  fairy  grounds  of 
Spenser.  In  the  productions  we  refer  to,  noth- 
ing but  names  and  places  is  familiar  ;  the  persons 
22 


338  B30ai20  of  J£\ia, 

are  neither  of  this  world  nor  of  any  other  conceiv- 
able one  ;  an  endless  string  of  activities  without 
purpose,  of  purposes  destitute  of  motive.  We 
meet  phantoms  in  our  known  walks  ;  fantasqiies^ 
only  christened.  In  the  poet  we  have  names 
which  announce  fiction,  and  we  have  absolutely 
no  place  a*t  all,  for  the  things  and  persons  of  the 
*' Fairy  Queen"  prate  not  of  their  "whereabouts." 
But  in  their  inner  nature,  and  the  law  of  their 
speech  and  actions,  we  are  at  home  and  upon 
acquainted  ground.  The  one  turns  life  into  a 
dream,  the  other  to  the  wildest  dreams  gives  the 
sobrieties  of  every-day  occurrences.  By  what 
subtle  art  of  tracing  the  mental  processes  it  is 
effected,  we  are  not  philosophers  enough  to  ex- 
plain ;  but  in  that  wonderful  episode  of  the  cave 
of  Mammon,  in  which  the  INIoney  God  appears 
first  in  the  lowest  form  of  a  miser,  is  then  a  work 
of  metals,  and  becomes  the  God  of  all  the  treas- 
ures of  the  world,  and  has  a  daughter,  Ambition, 
before  whom  all  the  world  kneels  for  favors, — 
with  the  Hesperian  fruit,  the  waters  of  Tantalus, 
with  Pilate  washing  his  hands  vainly,  but  not  im- 
pertinently, in  the  same  stream, — that  we  should 
be  at  one  moment  in  the  cave  of  an  old  hoarder  of 
treasures,  at  the  next  at  the  forge  of  the  Cyclops, 
in  a  palace  and  yet  in  hell,  all  at  once,  Avith  the 
shifting  mutations  of  the  most  rambling  dream, 
and  our  judgment  yet  all  the  time  awake,  and 
neither  able  nor  willing  to  detect  the  fallacy, — is  a 
proof  of  that  hidden  sanity  which  still  guides  the 
poet  in  the  wildest  seeming  aberrations. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  the  whole  episode 
is  a  copy  of  the  mind's  conceptions  in  sleep  ;  it  is 
in  some  sort, — but  what  a  copy  !     Let  the  most 


Sanftg  ot  ZTruc  (Bentus.  339 

romantic  of  us,  that  has  been  entertained  all  night 
with  the  spectacle  of  some  wild  and  magnificent 
vision,  recombine  it  in  the  morning,  and  try  it  by 
his  waking  judgment.  That  which  appeared  so 
shifting,  and  yet  so  coherent,  while  that  faculty 
was  passive,  when  it  comes  under  cool  examina- 
tion, shall  appear  so  reasonless  and  so  unlinked, 
that  we  are  ashamed  to  have  been  so  deluded  ; 
and  to  have  taken,  though  but  in  sleep,  a  monster 
for  a  god.  But  the  transitions  in  this  episode  are 
every  whit  as  violent  as  in  the  most  extravagant 
dream,  and  yet  the  waking  judgment  ratifies 
them. 


CAPTAIN  JACKSON. 


Among  the  deaths  in  our  obituary  for  this 
month,  I  observe  with  concern  "At  his  cottage 
on  the  Bath  road,  Captain  Jackson."  The  name 
and  attribution  are  common  enough  ;  but  a  feel- 
ing like  reproach  persuades  me,  that  this  could 
have  been  no  other  in  fact  than  my  dear  old 
friend,  who  some  five-and-twenty  years  ago 
rented  a  tenement,  which  he  was  pleased  to  dig- 
nify with  the  appellation  here  used,  about  a  mile 
from  Westbourn  Green.  Alack,  how  good  men, 
and  the  good  turns  they  do,  slide  out  of  memory, 
and  are  recalled  but  by  the  surprise  of  some  such 
sad  memento  as  that  which  now  lies  before  us  ! 

He  whom  I  mean  was  a  retired  half-pay  officer, 
with  a  wife  and  two  grown-up  daughters,  whom 
he  maintained  with  the  port  and  notions  of  gentle- 
women upon  that  slender  professional  allowance. 
Comely  girls  they  were,  too. 

And  I  was  in  danger  of  forgetting  this  man  ? — 
his  cheerful  suppers — the  noble  tone  of  hospital- 
ity, when  first  you  set  your  foot  in  /he  coiiage — 
the  anxious  ministerings  about  you,  where  little 
or  nothing  (God  knows)  was  to  be  ministered. 
Althea's  horn  in  a  poor  platter — the  power  of  self- 
enchantment,  by  which,  in  his  magnificent  wishes 
to  entertain  you,  he  multiplied  his  means  to 
bounties. 
340 


Captain  S^acftson,  341 

You  saw  with  your  bodily  eyes,  indeed,  what 
seemed  a  bare  scrag — cold  savings  from  the  fore- 
gone meal — remnant  hardly  sufficient  to  send  a 
mendicant  from  the  door  contented.  But  in  the 
copious  will, — the  reveling  imagination  of  your 
host — the  *'mind,  the  mind,  Master  Shallow," 
whole  beeves  were  spread  before — hecatombs — ■ 
no  end  appeared  to  the  profusion. 

It  was  the  widow's  cruse — the  loaves  and  fishes  ; 
carving  could  not  lessen,  nor  helping  diminish  it 
— the  stamina  were  left — the  elemental  bone  still 
flourished,  divested  of  its  accidents. 

**Let  us  live  while  we  can,"  methinks  I  hear 
the  open-handed  creature  exclaim  ;  ''while  we 
have,  let  us  not  want,"  ''here  is  plenty  left," 
"want  for  nothing," — with  many  more  such 
hospitable  sayings,  the  spurs  of  appetite,  and 
old  concomitants  of  smoking  boards,  and  feast- 
oppressed  chargers.  Then  sliding  a  slender  ratio 
of  Single  Gloucester  upon  his  wife's  plate,  or  the 
daughters',  he  would  convey  the  remanent  rind 
into  his  own,  with  a  merry  quirk  of  "the  nearer 
the  bone,"  etc.,  and  declaring  that  he  universally 
preferred  the  outside.  For  we  had  our  table  dis- 
tinctions, you  are  to  know,  and  some  of  us  in  a 
manner  sat  above  the  salt.  None  but  his  guest 
or  guests  dreamed  of  tasting  flesh  luxuries  at  night, 
the  fragments  were  vere  hospiiihiis  sacra.  But  of 
one  thing  or  another  there  was  always  enough, 
and  leavings  ;  only  he  would  sometimes  finish 
the  remainder  crust,  to  show  that  he  wished  no 
savings. 

Wine  we  had  none  ;  nor,  except  on  very  rare 
occasions,  spirits  ;  but  the  sensation  of  wine 
was  there.     Some  thin  kind  of  ale  I  remember. 


342  Beeaiss  ot  :£lia. 

—  ''British  beverage,'' he  would  say!  "Push 
about,  my  boys,"  "Drink  to  your  sweethearts, 
girls."  At  every  meagre  draught  a  toast  must 
ensue,  or  a  song.  All  the  forms  of  good  liquor 
were  there,  with  none  of  the  effects  wanting. 
Shut  your  eyes,  and  you  would  swear  a  capa- 
cious bowl  of  punch  was  foaming  in  the  centre, 
with  beams  of  generous  port  or  madeira  radiating 
to  it  from  each  of  the  table-corners.  You  got 
flustered,  without  knowing  whence  ;  tipsy  upon 
words  ;  and  reeled  under  the  potency  of  his 
unperforming  Bacchanalian  encouragements. 

We  had  our  songs,  —  "Why,  Soldiers,  why," 
— and  the  "  British  Grenadiers,"  in  which  last 
we  were  all  obliged  to  bear  chorus.  Both  the 
daughters  sang.  Their  proficiency  was  a  nightly 
theme, — the  masters  he  had  given  them, — the 
"no-expense"  which  he  spared  to  accomplish 
them  in  a  science  "so  necessary  to  young 
women."  But  then — they  could  not  sing  "with- 
out the  instrument." 

Sacred,  and  by  me  never-to-be-violated  secrets 
of  Poverty  !  Should  I  disclose  your  honest  aims 
at  grandeur,  your  makeshift  efforts  of  magnifi- 
cence.'' Sleep,  sleep,  with  all  thy  broken  keys, 
if  one  of  the  bunch  be  extant ;  thrummed  by  a 
thousand  ancestral  thumbs  ;  dear,  cracked  spinnet 
of  dearer  Louisa  !  Without  mention  of  mine,  be 
dumb,  thou  thin  accompanier  of  her  thinner 
warble !  A  veil  to  be  spread  over  the  dear  de- 
lighted face  of  the  well-deluded  father,  who  now, 
haply  listening  to  the  cherubic  notes,  scarce  feels 
sincerer  pleasure  than  when  she  awakened  thy 
time-shaken  chords  responsive  to  the  twitterings 
of  that  slender  image  of  a  voice. 


Captain  5acftBon.  343 

We  were  not  without  our  literary  talk  either. 
It  did  not  extend  far,  but  as  far  as  it  went,  it  was 
good.  It  was  bottomed  well ;  had  good  grounds 
to  go  upon.  In  the  cottage  was  a  room,  which 
tradition  authenticated  to  have  been  the  same  in 
which  Glover,  in  his  occasional  retirements,  had 
penned  the  greater  part  of  his  "  Leonidas. "  This 
circumstance  was  nightly  quoted,  though  none  of 
the  present  inmates  that  I  could  discover,  appeared 
ever  to  have  met  with  the  poem  in  question. 
But  that  was  no  matter.  Glover  had  written 
there,  and  the  anecdote  was  pressed  into  the 
account  of  the  family  importance.  It  diffused  a 
learned  air  through  the  apartment,  the  little  side 
casement  of  which  (the  poet's  study  window) 
opening  upon  a  superb  view  as  far  as  the  pretty 
spire  of  Harrow,  over  domains  and  patrimonial 
acres,  not  a  rood  nor  square  yard  whereof  our 
host  could  call  his  own,  yet  gave  occasion  to  an 
immoderate  expansion  of — vanity  shall  I  call  it  .'* 
in  his  bosom,  as  he  showed  them  in  a  glowing 
summer  evening.  It  was  all  his,  he  took  it  all  in, 
and  communicated  rich  portions  of  it  to  his  guests. 
It  was  a  part  of  his  largess,  his  hospitality  ;  it 
was  going  over  his  grounds  ;  he  was  lord  for  the 
time  of  showing  them,  and  you  the  implicit 
lookers-up  to  his  magnificence. 

He  was  a  juggler,  who  threw  mists  before  your 
eyes — you  had  no  time  to  detect  his  fallacies. 
He  would  say,  "Hand  me  the  silver  sugar- 
tongs  "  ;  and  before  you  could  discover  it  was  a 
single  spoon,  and  that  plated,  he  would  disturb 
and  captivate  your  imagination  by  a  misnomer  of 
''  the  urn  "  for  tea-kettle  ;  or  by  calling  a  homely 
bench  a  sofa.     Rich  men  direct  you  to  their  fur- 


344  Kssa^a  of  Blla, 

niture,  poor  ones  divert  you  from  it ;  he  neither 
did  one  nor  the  other,  but  by  simply  assuming 
that  everything  was  handsome  about  him,  you 
were  positively  at  a  demur  what  you  did,  or  did 
not  see  at  the  cottage.  With  nothing  to  live  on, 
he  seemed  to  live  on  every  thing.  He  had  a 
stock  of  wealth  in  his  mind  ;  not  that  which  is 
properly  termed  Content,  for  in  truth  he  was  not 
to  be  contained  at  all,  but  overflowed  all  bounds 
by  the  force  of  a  magnificent  self-delusion. 

Enthusiasm  is  catching,  and  even  his  wife,  a 
sober  native  of  North  Britain,  who  generally  saw 
things  more  as  they  were,  was  not  proof  against 
the  continual  collision  of  his  credulity.  Her 
daughters  were  rational  and  discreet  young 
women  ;  in  the  main,  perhaps,  not  insensible  to 
their  true  circumstances.  I  have  seen  them 
assume  a  thoughtful  air  at  times.  But  such  was 
the  preponderating  opulence  of  his  fancy,  that  I 
am  persuaded,  not  for  any  half  hour  together  did 
they  ever  look  their  own  prospects  fairly  in  the 
face.  There  was  no  resisting  the  vortex  of  his 
temperament.  His  riotous  imagination  conjured 
up  handsome  settlements  before  their  eyes,  which 
kept  them  up  in  the  eye  of  the  world  too,  and 
seem  at  last  to  have  realized  themselves  ;  for  they 
both  have  married  since,  I  am  told,  more  than 
respectably. 

It  is  long  since,  and  my  memory  waxes  dim  on 
some  subjects,  or  I  should  wish  to  convey  some 
notion  of  the  manner  in  which  the  pleasant  creat- 
ure described  the  circumstances  of  his  own  w^ed- 
ding-day.  I  faintly  remember  something  of  a 
chaise-and-four,  in  which  he  made  his  entry  into 
Glasgow  on  that  morning  to  fetch  the  bride  home. 


Captain  ^acftson,  345 

or  carry  her  thither,  I  forget  which.     It  so  com- 
pletely made  out  the  stanza  of  the  old  ballad — 

When  we  came  down  through  Glasgow  town, 

We  were  a  comely  sight  to  see ; 
My  love  was  clad  in  black  velvet, 

And  I  myself  in  cramasie. 

I  suppose  it  was  the  only  occasion  upon  which 
his  own  actual  splendor  at  all  corresponded  with 
the  world's  notions  on  that  subject.  In  homely 
cart,  or  traveling  caravan,  by  whatever  humble 
vehicle  they  chanced  to  be  transported  in  less 
prosperous  days,  the  ride  through  Glasgow  came 
back  upon  his  fancy,  not  as  a  humiliating  con- 
trast, but  as  a  fair  occasion  for  reverting  to  that 
one  day's  state.  It  seemed  an  "equipage  etern  " 
from  which  no  power  of  fate  or  fortune,  once 
mounted,  had  power  thereafter  to  dislodge  him. 

There  is  some  merit  in  putting  a  handsome  face 
upon  indigent  circumstances.  To  bully  and  swag- 
ger away  the  sense  of  them  before  strangers  may 
not  be  always  discommendable.  Tibbs,  and 
Bobadil,  even  when  detected,  have  more  of  our 
admiration  than  contempt.  But  for  a  man  to  put 
the  cheat  upon  himself ;  to  play  the  Bobadil  at 
home ;  and,  steeped  in  poverty  up  to  the  lips,  to 
fancy  himself  all  the  while  chin-deep  in  riches,  is 
a  strain  of  constitutional  philosophy,  and  a  mas- 
tery over  fortune,  which  was  reserved  for  my  old 
friend  Captain  Jackson. 


THE  SUPERANNUATED  MAN. 


Sera  tamen  respexit. 
Libertas. — Virgil. 

A  Clerk  I  was  in  London  gay. 

O'Keefe. 

If  peradventure,  Reader,  it  has  been  thy  lot  to 
waste  the  golden  years  of  thy  life — thy  shining 
youth — in  the  irksome  confinement  of  an  office  ; 
to  have  thy  prison-days  prolonged  through  middle 
age  down  to  decrepitude  and  silver  hairs,  without 
hope  of  release  or  respite  ;  to  have  lived  to  forget 
that  there  are  such  things  as  holidays,  or  to  re- 
member them  but  as  the  prerogatives  of  child- 
hood ;  then,  and  then  only,  will  you  be  able  to 
appreciate  my  deliverance. 

It  is  now  six-and-thirty  years,  since  I  took  my 
seat  at  the  desk  in  Mincing  Lane.  Melancholy 
was  the  transition  at  fourteen  from  the  abundant 
playtime,  and  the  frequently  intervening  vaca- 
tions of  school-days,  to  the  eight,  nine,  and  some- 
times ten  hours'  a-day  attendance  at  the  counting- 
house.  But  time  partially  reconciles  us  to  any 
thing.  I  gradually  became  content — doggedly 
contented,  as  wild  animals  in  cages. 

It  is  true  I  had  my  Sundays  to  myself  ;  but 
Sundays,  admirable  as  the  institution  of  them  is 


Cbe  SuperannuateD  /iRan.  347 

for  purposes  of  worship,  are  for  that  very  reason 
the  very  worst  adapted  for  days  of  unbending  and 
recreation.  In  particular,  there  is  a  gloom  for  me 
attendant  upon  a  city  Sunday,  a  weight  in  the  air. 
I  miss  the  cheerful  cries  of  London,  the  music,  and 
the  ballad-singers, — the  buzz  and  stirring  murmur 
of  the  streets.  Those  eternal  bells  depress  me. 
The  closed  shops  repel  me.  Prints,  pictures,  all 
the  glittering  and  endless  succession  of  knacks 
and  gewgaws,  and  ostentatiously  displayed  wares 
of  tradesmen,  which  make  a  week-day  saunter 
through  the  less-busy  parts  of  the  metropolis  so 
delightful — are  shut  out.  No  book-stalls  deli- 
ciously  to  idle  over — no  busy  faces  to  recreate  the 
idle  man  who  contemplates  them  ever  passing 
by — the  very  face  of  business  a  charm  by  con- 
trast to  his  temporary  relaxation  from  it.  Noth- 
ing to  be  seen  but  unhappy  countenances — or 
half-happy  at  best — of  emancipated 'prentices  and 
little  tradesfolks,  with  here  and  there  a  servant- 
maid  that  has  got  leave  to  go  out,  who,  slaving 
all  the  week,  with  the  habit  has  lost  almost  the 
capacity  of  enjoying  a  free  hour  ;  and  livelily 
expressing  the  hollowness  of  a  day's  pleasuring. 
The  very  strollers  in  the  fields  on  that  day  look 
any  thing  but  comfortable. 

But  besides  Sundays  I  had  a  day  at  Easter,  and 
a  day  at  Christmas,  with  a  full  week  in  the  summer 
to  go  and  air  myself  in  my  native  fields  of  Hert- 
fordshire. This  last  was  a  great  indulgence  ;  and 
the  prospect  of  its  recurrence,  I  believe,  alone 
kept  me  up  through  the  year,  and  made  my 
durance  tolerable.  But  when  the  week  came 
round,  did  the  glittering  phantom  of  the  distance 
keep  touch  with  me  ?  or  rather  was  it  not  a  series 


348  J660a^0  of  JEIia. 

of  seven  uneasy  days,  spent  in  restless  pursuit  of 
pleasure,  and  a  wearisome  anxiety  to  find  out  how 
to  make  the  most  of  them  ?  Where  was  the  quiet, 
where  the  promised  rest  ?  Before  I  had  a  taste  of 
it,  it  was  vanished.  I  was  at  the  desk  again,  count- 
ing upon  the  fifty-one  tedious  weeks  that  must 
intervene  before  such  another  snatch  would  come. 
Still  the  prospect  of  its  coming  threw  something 
of  an  illumination  upon  the  darker  side  of  my  cap- 
tivity. Without  it,  as  I  have  said,  I  could  scarcely 
have  sustained  my  thraldom. 

Independently  of  the  rigors  of  attendance,  I 
have  ever  been  haunted  with  a  sense  (perhaps  a 
mere  caprice)  of  incapacity  for  business.  This, 
during  my  latter  years,  had  increased  to  such  a 
degree,  that  it  was  visible  in  all  the  lines  of  my 
countenance.  My  health  and  my  good  spirits 
flagged.  I  had  perpetually  a  dread  of  some  crisis, 
to  which  I  should  be  found  unequal.  Besides 
my  daylight  servitude,  I  served  over  again  all 
night  in  my  sleep,  and  would  awake  with  terrors 
of  imaginary  false  entries,  errors  in  my  accounts, 
and  the  like.  I  was  fifty  years  of  age,  and  no 
prospect  of  emancipation  presented  itself  I  had 
grown  to  my  desk,  as  it  were,  and  the  wood  had 
entered  into  my  soul. 

]\Iy  fellows  in  the  office  would  sometimes  rally 
me  upon  the  trouble  legible  in  my  countenance  ; 
but  I  did  not  know  that  it  had  raised  the  suspi- 
cions of  any  of  my  employers,  when,  on  the  fifth 
of  last  month,  a  day  ever  to  be  remembered  by 

me,  L ,  the  junior  partner  in  the  firm,  calling 

me  on  one  side,  directly  taxed  me  with  my  bad 
looks,  and  frankly  inquired  the  cause  of  them.  So 
taxed,  I  honestly  made  confession  of  my  infirmity, 


;rbe  Superannuated  flian.  349 

and  added  that  I  was  afraid  I  should  eventually 
be  oblig-ed  to  resign  his  service.  He  spoke  some 
words,  of  course  to  hearten  me,  and  there  the 
matter  rested.  A  whole  week  I  remained  labor- 
ing under  the  impression  that  I  had  acted  impru- 
dently in  my  disclosure  ;  that  I  had  foolishly 
given  a  handle  against  myself,  and  had  been  an- 
ticipating my  own  dismissal.  A  week  passed  in 
this  manner,  the  most  anxious  one,  I  verily  believe, 
in  my  whole  life,  when,  on  the  evening  of  the  12th 
of  April,  just  as  I  was  about  quitting  my  desk  to 
go  home  (it  might  be  about  eight  o'clock),  I  re- 
ceived an  awful  summons  to  attend  the  presence 
of  the  whole  assembled  firm  in  the  formidable 
back  parlor.  I  thought  now  my  time  is  surely 
come,  I  have  done  for  myself,  I  am  going  to  be 
told  that  they  have  no  longer  occasion  for  me. 

L ,  I  could  see,  smiled  at  the  terror  I  was  in, 

which  was  a  little  relief  to  me, — when  to  my  utter 

astonishment  B ,   the    eldest   partner,    began 

a  formal  harangue  to  me  on  the  length  of  my 
services,  my  very  meritorious  conduct  during  the 
whole  of  the  time,  (the  deuce,  thought  I,  how  did 
he  find  out  that  ?  I  protest  I  never  had  the  confi- 
dence to  think  as  much).  He  went  on  to  descant 
on  the  expediency  of  retiring  at  a  certain  time  of 
life,  (how  my  heart  panted  ! )  and  asking  me  a 
few  questions  as  to  the  amount  of  my  own  prop- 
erty, of  which  I  have  a  little,  ended  with  a  pro- 
posal, to  which  his  three  partners  nodded  a  grave 
assent,  that  I  should  accept  from  the  house, 
which  I  had  served  so  well,  a  pension  for  life  to 
the  amount  of  two-thirds  of  my  accustomed  salary 
— a  magnificent  offer  !  I  do  not  know  what  I 
answered  between  surprise  and  gratitude,  but  it 


350  iB53n^6  ct  :eita. 

was  understood  that  I  accepted  their  proposal,  and 
I  was  told  that  I  was  free  from  that  hour  to  leave 
their  service.  I  stammered  out  a  bow,  and  at  just 
ten  minutes  after  eight  I  went  home — forever. 
This  noble  benefit — gratitude  forbids  me  to  con- 
ceal their  names — I  owe  to  the  kindness  of  the 
most  miunificent  firm  in  the  world — the  house 
of  Boldero,  Merryweather,  Bosanquet,  and  Lacy. 

Esto  perpetiia  ! 

For  the  first  day  or  two  I  felt  stunned,  over- 
whelmed. I  could  only  apprehend  my  felicity  ;  I 
was  too  confused  to  taste  it  sincerely.  I  wandered 
about,  thinking  I  was  happy,  and  knowing  that 
I  was  not.  I  was  in  the  condition  of  a  prisoner 
in  the  old  Bastile,  suddenly  let  loose  after  a  forty 
years*  confinement.  I  could  scarce  trust  myself 
with  myself.  It  was  like  passing  out  of  Time 
into  Eternity, — for  it  is  a  sort  of  Eternity  for  a 
man  to  have  his  Time  all  to  himself.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  I  had  more  time  on  my  hands  than  I 
could  ever  manage.  From  a  poor  man,  poor  in 
time,  I  was  suddenly  lifted  up  into  a  vast  revenue ; 
I  could  see  no  end  of  my  possessions  ;  I  wanted 
some  steward,  or  judicious  bailiff,  to  manage  my 
estates  in  Time  for  me.  And  here  let  me  caution 
persons  grown  old  in  active 'business,  not  lightly, 
nor  without  weighing  their  own  resources,  to 
forego  their  customary  employment  all  at  once, 
for  there  may  be  danger  in  it.  I  feel  it  by 
myself,  but  I  know  that  my  resources  are  suffi- 
cient ;  and  now  that  those  first  giddy  raptures 
have  subsided,  I  have  a  quiet  home-feeling  of  the 
blessedness  of  my  condition.     I  am  in  no  hurry. 


XLbc  Superannuated  /iRan,  351 

Having  all  holidays,  I  am  as  though  I  had  none. 
If  Time  hung  heavy  upon  me,  1  could  walk  it 
away ;  but  I  do  no/  walk  all  day  long,  as  I  used 
to  do  in  those  old  transient  holidays,  thirty  miles 
a  day,  to  make  the  most  of  them.  If  Time  were 
troublesome,  I  could  read  it  away ;  but  I  do  no/ 
read  in  that  violent  measure,  with  which,  having 
no  Time  my  own  but  candlelight  Time,  I  used  to 
weary  out  my  head  and  eyesight  in  bygone  win- 
ters. I  walk,  read,  or  scribble  (as  now)  just  when 
the  fit  seizes  me.  I  no  longer  hunt  after  pleasure  ; 
I  let  it  come  to  me.     I  am  like  the  man 

that's  born,  and  has  his  years  come  to  him, 
In  some  green  desert. 

*' Years  !  "  you  will  say  ;  ''what  is  this  super- 
annuated simpleton  calculating  upon.?  He  has 
already  told  us  he  is  past  fifty. " 

I  have  indeed  lived  nominally  fifty  years,  but 
deduct  out  of  them  the  hours  which  I  have  lived 
to  other  people,  and  not  to  myself,  and  you  will 
find  me  still  a  young  fellow.  (  For  /ha/  is  the  only 
true  Time  which  a  man  can  properly  call  his  own,^.^ 
that  which  he  has  all  to  himself ;  the  rest,  though 
in  some  sense  he  may  be  said  to  live  it,  is  other 
people's  time,  not  his.  ^The  remnant  of  my  poor 
days,  long  or  short,  is  at  least  multiplied  for  me 
three-fold.  My  next  ten  years,  if  I  stretch  so  far, 
will  be  as  long  as  any  preceding  thirty.  'Tis  a 
fair  rule-of-three  sum. 

Among  the  strange  fantasies  which  beset  me  at 
the  commencement  of  my  freedom,  and  of  which 
all  traces  are  not  yet  gone,  one  was  that  a  vast 
tract  of  time  had  intervened  since  I  quitted  the 


352  }e05a^0  ot  Blla. 

Counting-House.  I  could  not  conceive  of  it  as 
an  affair  of  yesterday.  The  partners,  and  the 
clerks  with  whom  I  had  for  so  many  years,  and 
for  so  many  hours  in  each  day  of  the  year,  been 
closely  associated, — being  suddenly  removed  from 
them, — they  seemed  as  dead  to  me.  There  is  a 
fine  passage,  which  may  serve  to  illustrate  this 
fancy,  in  a  Tragedy  by  Sir  Robert  Howard,  speak- 
ing of  a  friend's  death  : 

'Twas  but  just  now  he  went  away  ; 
I  have  not  since  had  time  to  shed  a  tear ; 
And  yet  the  distance  does  the  same  appear 
As  if  he  had  been  a  thousand  years  from  me. 
Time  takes  no  measure  in  Eternity. 

To  dissipate  this  awkward  feeling,  I  have  been 
fain  to  go  among  them  once  or  twice  since,  to 
visit  my  old  desk-fellows, — my  co-brethren  of  the 
quill, — that  I  had  left  below  in  the  state  militant. 
Not  all  the  kindness  with  which  they  received  me 
could  quite  restore  to  me  that  pleasant  familiarity 
which  I  had  heretofore  enjoyed  among  them.  We 
cracked  some  of  our  old  jokes,  but  methought 
they  went  off  but  faintly.  My  old  desk,  the  peg 
where  I  hung  my  hat,  were  appropriated  to  an- 
other.    I  knew  it  must  be,  but  I  could  not  take  it 

kindly.     D 1  take  me,  if  I  did  not  feel  some 

remorse — beast,  if  I  had  not — at  quitting  my  old 
compeers,  the  faithful  partners  of  my  toils  for  six- 
and-thirty  years,  that  smoothed  for  me  with  their 
jokes  and  conundrums  the  ruggedness  of  my  pro- 
fessional road.  Had  it  been  so  rugged  then, 
after  all  ?  or  was  I  a  coward  simply  ?  Well,  it  is 
too  late  to  repent ;  and  I  also  know  that  these 
suggestions  are  a  common  fallacy  of  the  mind  on 


^be  SuperannuatcD  ^an.  353 

such  occasions.  But  my  heart  smote  me.  I  had 
violently  broken  the  bands  betwixt  us.  It  was  at 
least  not  courteous.  I  shall  be  some  time  before 
I  get  quite  reconciled  to  the  separation.  Fare- 
well, old  cronies,  yet  not  for  long,  for  again  and 
again  I  will  come  among  ye,  if  I  shall  have  your 

leave.        Farewell,    Ch ,    dry,    sarcastic,    and 

friendly  !  Do ,  mild,  slow  to  move,  and  gen- 
tlemanly !  PI ,  officious  to  do  and  to  volun- 
teer good  services  ! — and  thou,  thou  dreary  pile, 
fit  mansion  for  a  Gresham  or  a  Whittington  of  old, 
stately  house  of  Merchants  ;  with  thy  labyrinthine 
passages,  and  light-excluding,  pent-up  offices, 
where  candles  for  one  half  the  year  supplied  the 
place  of  the  sun's  light ;  unhealthy  contributor  to 
my  weal,  stern  fosterer  of  my  living,  farewell ! 
In  thee  remain,  and  not  in  the  obscure  collection 
of  some  wandering  bookseller,  my  "works!" 
There  let  them  rest,  as  I  do  from  my  labors,  piled 
on  thy  massy  shelves,  more  MSS.  in  folio  than 
ever  Aquinas  left,  and  full  as  useful !  My  mantle 
I  bequeath  among  ye. 

A  fortnight  has  passed  since  the  date  of  my  first 
communication.  At  that  period  I  was  approach- 
ing to  tranquillity,  but  had  not  reached  it.  I 
boasted  of  a  calm  indeed,  but  it  was  comparative 
only.  '  Something  of  the  first  flutter  was  left ;  an 
unsettling  sense  of  novelty  ;  the  dazzle  to  weak 
eyes  of  unaccustomed  light.  I  missed  my  old 
chains,  forsooth,  as  if  they  had  been  some  neces- 
sary part  of  my  apparel.  I  was  a  poor  Carthusian, 
from  strict  cellular  discipline  suddenly  by  some 
revolution  returned  upon  the  world.  I  am  now 
as  if  I  had  never  been  other  than  my  own  master. 
It  is  natural  for  me  to  go  where  I  please,  to  do 
23 


354  iSssa^s  ot  BUa. 

what  I  please.  I  find  myself  at  eleven  o'clock  in 
the  day  in  Bond  Street,  and  it  seems  to  me  that 
I  have  been  sauntering  there  at  that  very  hour  for 
years  past.  I  digress  into  Soho,  to  explore  a  book- 
stall. Methinks  I  have  been  thirty  years  a  col- 
lector. There  is  nothing  strange  nor  new  in  it. 
I  find  myself  before  a  fine  picture  in  the  morning. 
Was  it  ever  otherwise  ?  What  has  become  of  Fish 
Street  hill  ?  Where  is  Fen  church  Street  ?  Stones 
of  old  Mincing  Lane,  which  I  have  worn  with 
my  daily  pilgrimage  for  six-and-thirty  years, 
to  the  footsteps  of  what  toil-worn  clerk  are  your 
everlasting  flints  now  vocal  ?  1  indent  the  gayer 
flags  of  Pall  Mall.  It  is  'Change  time,  and  I  am 
strangely  among  the  Elgin  marbles.  It  was  no 
hyperbole  when  I  ventured  to  compare  the  change 
in  my  condition  to  a  passing  into  another  world. 
Time  stands  still  in  a  manner  to  me.  I  have  lost 
all  distinction  of  season.  I  do  not  know  the  day 
of  the  week  or  of  the  month.  Each  day  used  to 
be  individually  felt  by  me  in  its  reference  to  the 
foreign  post  days  ;  in  its  distance  from,  or  pro- 
pinquity to,  the  next  Sunday.  I  had  my  Wednes- 
day feelings,  my  Saturday  nights  sensations. 
The  genius  of  each  day  was  upon  me  distinctly 
during  the  whole  of  it,  affecting  my  appetite,  spirits, 
etc.  The  phantom  of  the  next  day,  with  the  dreary 
five  to  follow,  sat  as  a  load  upon  my  poor  Sabbath 
recreations.  What  charm  has  washed  that  Ethiop 
white.?  What  is  gone  of  Black  Monday.?  All 
days  are  the  same.  Sunday  itself, — that  unfortu- 
nate failure  of  a  holiday,  as  it  too  often  proved, 
what  with  my  sense  of  its  fugitiveness,  and  over- 
care  to  get  the  greatest  quantity  of  pleasure  out 
of  it, — is  melted  down  into  a  week-day.     I  can 


^be  SuperannuateD  /iBan.  355 

spare  to  go  to  church  now  without  grudging  the 
huge  cantle  which  it  used  to  seem  to  cut  out  of  the 
lioliday.  I  have  Time  for  everything.  I  can  visit 
a  sick  friend.  I  can  interrupt  the  man  of  much 
occupation  when  he  is  busiest.  I  can  insult  over 
him  with  an  invitation  to  take  a  day's  pleasure 
with  me  to  Windsor  this  fine  May  morning.  It 
is  Lucretian  pleasure  to  behold  the  poor  drudges, 
whom  I  have  left  behind  in  the  world,  carking 
and  caring ;  like  horses  in  a  mill,  drudging  on  in 
the  same  eternal  round — and  what  is  it  all  for  ? 
A  man  can  never  have  too  much  Time  to  himself, 
nor  too  little  to  do.  Had  I  a  little  son,  I  would 
christen  him  Nothing-to-do  ;  he  should  do  noth- 
ing. Man,  I  verily  believe,  is  out  of  his  element 
as  long  as  he  is  operative.  I  am  altogether  for 
the  life  contemplative.  Will  no  kindly  earthquake 
come  and  swallow  up  those  accursed  cotton-mills  ? 
Take  me  that  lumber  of  a  desk  there,  and  bowl  it 
down 

As  low  as  to  the  fiends. 

I  am  no  longer  .  .  . ,  clerk  to  the  Firm  of, 
etc.  I  am  Retired  Leisure.  I  am  to  be  met  with 
in  trim  gardens.  I  am  already  come  to  be  known 
by  my  vacant  stare  and  careless  gesture,  peram- 
bulating at  no  fixed  pace,  nor  with  any  settled 
purpose.  I  walk  about  ;  not  to  and  from.  They 
tell  me,  a  certain  cu?n  dignitate  air,  that  has  been 
buried  so  long  with  my  other  good  parts,  has 
begun  to  shoot  forth  in  my  person.  I  grow  into 
gentility  perceptibly.  When  I  take  up  a  news- 
paper, it  is  to  read  the  state  of  the  opera.  Opus 
operatum  est.  I  have  done  all  that  I  came  into 
this  world  to  do.  I  have  worked  task-work,  and 
have  the  rest  of  the  day  to  myself. 


THE  GENTEEL  STYLE  IN  WRITING. 


It  is  an  ordinary  criticism,  that  my  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury and  Sir  William  Temple  are  models  of  the 
genteel  style  in  writing.  We  should  prefer  saying 
— of  the  lordly,  and  gentlemanly.  Nothing  can 
be  more  unlike  than  the  inflated  finical  rhapsodies 
of  Shaftesbury  and  the  plain  natural  chit-chat  of 
Temple.  The  man  of  rank  is  discernible  in  both 
writers  ;  but  in  the  one  it  is  only  insinuated  grace- 
fully, in  the  other  it  stands  out  offensively.  The 
peer  seems  to  have  written  with  his  coronet  on, 
and  his  earl's  mantle  before  him ;  the  commoner 
in  his  elbow-chair  and  undress.  What  can  be 
more  pleasant  than  the  way  in  which  the  retired 
statesman  peeps  out  in  his  essays,  penned  by  the 
latter  in  his  delightful  retreat  at  Shene.'*  They 
scent  of  Nimeguen  and  the  Hague.  Scarce  an 
authority  is  quoted  under  an  ambassador.  Don 
Francisco  de  Melo,  a  '"Portugal  Envoy  in  Eng- 
land," tells  him  it  was  frequent  in  his  country  for 
men,  spent  with  age  and  other  decays,  so  as  they 
could  not  hope  for  above  a  year  or  two  of  life,  to 
ship  themselves  aw^ay  in  a  Brazil  fleet,  and  after 
their  arrival  there  to  go  on  a  great  length,  some- 
times of  twenty  or  thirty  years,  or  more,  by  the 
force  of  that  vigor  they  recovered  with  that  re- 
move. "Whether  such  an  effect  (Temple beauti- 
356 


Xlbc  (3entcel  Stisle  in  Mriting.  357 

fully  adds)  might  grow  from  the  air,  or  the  fruits 
of  that  climate,  or  by  approaching  nearer  the  sun, 
which  is  the  fountain  of  light  and  heat,  when 
their  natural  heat  was  so  far  decayed  ;  or  whether 
the  piecing  out  of  an  old  man's  life  were  worth 
the  pains,  I  cannot  tell  :  perhaps  the  play  is  not 
worth  the  candle."  Monsieur  Pompone,  '*  French 
Ambassador,  in  his  (Sir  William's)  time,  at  the 
Hague,"  certifies  him,  that  in  his  life  he  had  never 
heard  of  any  man  in  France  that  arrived  at  a 
hundred  years  of  age  ;  a  limitation  of  life  which 
the  old  gentleman  imputes  to  the  excellence  of 
their  climate,  giving  them  such  a  liveliness  of 
temper  and  humor,  as  disposes  them  to  more 
pleasures  of  all  kinds  than  in  other  countries  ;  and 
moralizes  upon  the  matter  very  sensibly.  The 
'Mate  Robert,  Earl  of  Leicester,"  furnishes  him 
with  a  story  of  a  Countess  of  Desmond,  married 
out  of  England  in  Edward  the  Fourth's  time, 
and  who  lived  far  in  King  James'  reign.  The 
''same  noble  person  "  gives  him  an  account,  how 
in  such  a  year,  in  the  same  reign,  there  went 
about  the  country  a  set  of  morris-dancers,  com- 
posed of  ten  men  who  danced,  a  Maidmarian, 
and  a  tabor  and  a  pipe  ;  and  how  these  twelve, 
one  with  another,  made  up  twelve  hundred  years. 
'*It  was  not  so  much  (says  Temple)  that  so  many 
in  one  small  county  (Hertfordshire)  should  live  to 
that  age,  as  that  they  should  be  in  vigor  and  in 
humor  to  travel  and  to  dance."  Monsieur  Zuli- 
chem,  one  of  his  colleagues  at  the  Hague,  informs 
him  of  a  cure  for  the  gout ;  which  is  confirmed  by 
another  ''Envoy,"  Monsieur  Serinchamps,  in  that 
town,  who  had  tried  it.  Old  Prince  Maurice  of 
Nassau  recommends  to  him  the  use  of  hammocks 


3s8  l£6sa^Q  of  JSlia, 

in  that  complaint,  having  been  allured  to  sleep, 
while  suffering  under  it  himself,  by  the  ''constant 
motion  or  swinging  of  those  airy  beds."  Count 
Egmont,  and  the  Rhinegrave  who  "was  killed 
last  summer  before  Maestricht/'  impart  to  him 
their  experiences. 

But  the  rank  of  the  writer  is  never  more  inno- 
cently disclosed,  than  where  he  takes  for  granted 
the  compliments  paid  by  foreigners  to  his 
fruit-trees.  For  the  taste  and  perfection  of  what 
we  esteem  the  best,  he  can  truly  say,  that  the 
French,  who  have  eaten  his  peaches  and  grapes 
at  Shene,  in  no  very  ill  year,  have  generally  con- 
cluded that  the  last  are  as  good  as  any  they  have 
eaten  in  France  on  this  side  Fontainebleau  ;  and 
the  first  as  good  as  any  they  have  eat  in  Gascony. 
Italians  have  agreed  his  white  figs  to  be  as  good 
as  any  of  that  sort  in  Italy,  which  is  the  earlier 
kind  of  white  fig  there ;  for  in  the  later  kind  and 
the  blue,  we  cannot  come  near  the  warm  climates, 
no  more  than  in  the  Frontignac  or  Muscat  grape. 
His  orange-trees,  too,  are  as  large  as  any  he  saw 
when  he  was  young  in  France,  except  those  of 
Fontainebleau  ;  or  what  he  has  seen  since  in  the 
Low  Countries,  except  some  very  old  ones  of  the 
Prince  of  Orange's.  Of  grapes  he  had  the  honor 
of  bringing  over  four  sorts  into  England,  which  he 
enumerates,  and  supposes  that  they  are  all  by  this 
time  pretty  common  among  some  gardeners  in 
his  neighborhood,  as  well  as  several  persons  of 
quality  ;  for  he  ever  thought  all  things  of  this  kind 
"  the  commoner  they  are  made  the  better."  The 
garden  pedantry  with  which  he  asserts  that  't  is  to 
little  purpose  to  plant  any  of  the  best  fruits,  as 
peaches   or  grapes,    hardly,    he  doubts,   beyond 


XLbc  ©entecl  Stgle  in  matting.  359 

Northamptonshire  at  the  farthest  northwards,  and 
praises  the  "Bishop  of  Munster  at  Cosevelt,"  for 
attempting  nothing  beyond  cherries  in  that  cold 
cHmate,  is  equally  pleasant  and  in  character.  **I 
may  perhaps "  (he  thus  ends  his  sweet  Garden 
Essay  with  a  passage  w^orthy  of  Cowley)  "be 
allowed  to  know  something  of  this  trade,  since  I 
have  so  long  allowed  myself  to  be  good  for  noth- 
ing else  which  few  men  will  do,  or  enjoy  their 
gardens,  without  often  looking  abroad  to  see  how 
matters  play,  what  motions  in  the  state,  and  what 
invitations  they  may  hope  for  into  other  scenes. 
For  my  own  part,  as  the  country  life,  and  this 
part  of  it  more  particularly,  were  the  inclination 
of  my  youth  itself,  so  they  are  the  pleasure  of  my 
age  ;  and  I  can  truly  say  that,  among  many  great 
employments  that  have  fallen  to  my  share,  I  have 
never  asked  or  sought  for  any  of  them,  but  have 
often  endeavored  to  escape  from  them,  into  the 
ease  and  freedom  of  a  private  scene,  where  a  man 
may  go  his  own  way  and  in  his  own  pace,  in  the 
common  paths  and  circles  of  life.  The  measure 
of  choosing  well  is  whether  a  man  likes  what  he 
has  chosen,  which,  I  thank  God,  has  befallen  me  ; 
and  though  among  the  follies  of  my  life,  building 
and  planting  have  not  been  the  least,  and  have 
cost  me  more  than  I  have  the  confidence  to  own, 
yet  they  have  been  fully  recompensed  by  the 
sweetness  and  satisfaction  of  this  retreat,  where, 
since  my  resolution  taken  of  never  entering  again 
into  any  public  employments,  I  have  passed  five 
years  without  ever  once  going  to  town,  though  I 
am  almost  in  sight  of  it,  and  have  a  house  there 
always  ready  to  receive  me.  Nor  has  this  been 
any  sort  of  affectation,  as  some  have  thought  it,  but 


360  iBss^^s  ot  jBlin* 

a  mere  want  of  desire  or  humor  to  make  so  small 
a  remove  ;  for  when  I  am  in  this  corner,  I  can 
truly  say  with  Horace,  Me  quoties  reficitj  etc. 

"  Me,  when  the  cold  Digentian  stream  revives, 
What  does  my  friend  believe  I  think  or  ask  ? 
Let  me  yet  less  possess,  so  I  may  live, 
Whate'er  of  life  remains,  unto  myself. 
May  I  have  books  enough  ;  and  one  year's  store, 
Not  to  depend  upon  each  doubtful  hour  : 
This  is  enough  of  mighty  Jove  to  pray, 
Who,  as  he  pleases,  gives  and  takes  away," 

The  writings  of  Temple  are,  in  general,  after  this 
easy  copy.  On  one  occasion,  indeed,  his  wit, 
which  was  mostly  subordinate  to  nature  and  ten- 
derness, has  seduced  him  to  a  string  of  felicitous 
antithesis,  which,  it  is  obvious  to  remark,  have 
been  a  model  to  Addison  and  succeeding  essayists. 
"  Who  would  not  be  covetous,  and  with  reason," 
he  says,  ' '  if  health  could  be  purchased  with  gold  ? 
who  not  ambitious,  if  it  were  at  the  command  of 
power,  or  restored  by  honor  .''  but,  alas  !  a  white 
staff  will  not  help  gouty  feet  to  walk  better  than  a 
common  cane  ;  nor  a  blue  ribbon  bind  up  a  wound 
so  well  as  a  fillet.  The  glitter  of  gold  or  of  dia- 
monds will  but  hurt  sore  eyes  instead  of  curing 
them  ;  and  an  aching  head  will  be  no  more  eased 
by  wearing  a  crown  than  a  common  nightcap." 

In  a  far  better  style,  and  more  accordant  with 
his  own  humor  of  plainness,  are  the  concluding 
sentences  of  his  "  Discourse  upon  Poetry. "  Tem- 
ple took  a  part  in  the  controversy  about  the  an- 
cient and  the  modern  learning  ;  and,  with  that  par- 
tiality so  natural  and  so  graceful  in  an  old  man, 
whose  state  engagements  had  left  him  little  leisure 
to  look  into  modern  productions,  while  his  retire- 


XLhc  (Genteel  St^le  (n  IKaaitlng*  361 

ment  gave  him  occasion  to  look  back  upon  the 
classic  studies  of  his  youth, — decided  in  favor  of 
the  latter.  "Certain  it  is, "he  says,  "  that  whether 
the  fierceness  of  the  Gothic  humors,  or  noise  of 
their  perpetual  wars,  frighted  it  away,  or  that  the 
unequal  mixture  of  the  modern  languages  would 
not  bear  it, — the  great  heights  and  excellency  both 
of  poetry  and  music  fell  with  the  Roman  learning 
and  empire,  and  have  never  since  recovered  the 
admiration  and  applauses  that  before  attended 
them.  Yet  such  as  they  are  amongst  us,  they 
must  be  confessed  to  be  the  softest  and  the  sweet- 
est, the  most  general  and  most  innocent  amuse- 
ments of  common  time  and  life.  They  still  find 
room  in  the  courts  of  princes,  and  the  cottages  of 
shepherds.  They  serve  to  revive  and  animate  the 
dead  calm  of  poor  and  idle  lives,  and  to  allay  or 
divert  the  violent  passions  and  perturbations  of 
the  greatest  and  the  busiest  men.  And  both  these 
effects  are  of  equal  use  to  human  life  ;  for  the  mind 
of  man  is  like  the  sea,  which  is  neither  agreeable 
to  the  beholder  nor  the  voyager  in  a  calm  or  in  a 
storm,  but  is  so  to  both  when  a  little  agitated  by 
gentle  gales  ; — and  so  the  mind,  when  moved  by 
soft  and  easy  passions  or  affections.  I  know  very 
well  that  many  who  pretend  to  be  wise  by  the 
forms  of  being  grave,  are  apt  to  despise  both  po- 
etry and  music,  as  toys  and  trifles  too  light  for  the 
use  or  entertainment  of  serious  men.  But  who- 
ever find  themselves  wholly  insensible  to  their 
charms,  would,  I  think,  do  well  to  keep  their  own 
counsel,  for  fear  of  reproaching  their  own  temper, 
and  bringing  the  goodness  of  their  natures,  if  not 
of  their  understandings,  into  question.  While  this 
world  lasts,  I  doubt  not  but  the  pleasure  and  re- 


362  J660as0  ot  Blia. 

quest  of  these  two  entertainments  will  do  so  too ; 
and  happy  those  that  content  themselves  with 
these,  or  any  other  so  easy  and  so  innocent,  and 
do  not  trouble  the  world  or  other  men,  because 
they  cannot  be  quiet  themselves,  though  nobody 
hurts  them."  "  When  all  is  done  (he  concludes), 
human  life  is  at  the  greatest  and  the  best  but  like 
a  forward  child,  that  must  be  played  with,  and 
humored  a  little,  to  keep  it  quiet,  till  it  falls  asleep, 
and  then  the  care  is  over." 


BARBARA  S- 


On  the  noon  of  the  uth  of  November,  1743  or 
4,   I  forget  which  it  was,  just  as  the  clock  had 

struck  one,  Barbara  S -,  with  her   accustomed 

punctuality,  ascended  the  long  rambling  staircase, 
with  awkward  interposed  landing-places,  which 
led  to  the  office,  or  rather  a  sort  of  box  with  a  desk 
in  it,  whereat  sat  the  then  treasurer  of  (what  few 
of  our  readers  may  remember)  the  old  Bath  Thea- 
tre. All  over  the  island  it  was  the  custom,  and 
remains  so  I  believe  to  this  day,  for  the  players 
to  receive  their  weekly  stipend  on  the  Saturday. 
It  was  not  much  that  Barbara  had  to  claim. 

The  little  maid  had  just  entered  her  eleventh 
year,  but  her  important  station  at  the  theatre,  as 
it  seemed  to  her,  with  the  benefits  which  she  felt 
to  accrue  from  her  pious  application  of  her  small 
earnings,  had  given  an  air  of  womanhood  to  her 
steps  and  to  her  behavior.  You  would  have  taken 
her  to  have  been  at  least  five  years  older. 

Till  latterly  she  had  merely  been  employed  in 
choruses,  or  where  children  were  wanted  to  fill 
up  the  scene.  But  the  manager,  observing  a  dili- 
gence and  adroitness  in  her  above  her  age,  had 
for  some  few  months  past  intrusted  to  her  the  per- 
formance of  whole  parts.  You  may  guess  the  self- 
consequence  of  the  promoted  Barbara,     She  had 

3^Z 


364  JBessi^s  of  BUa, 

already  drawn  tears  in  young  Arthur ;  had  rallied 
Richard  with  infantine  petulance  in  the  Duke  of 
York  ;  and  in  her  turn  had  rebuked  that  petulance 
when  she  was  Prince  of  Wales.  She  would  have 
done  the  elder  child  in  IMorton's  pathetic  after-piece 
to  the  life  ;  but  as  yet  the  '  *  Children  in  the  Wood  " 
was  not. 

Long  after  this  little  girl  was  grown  an  aged 
woman,  I  have  seen  some  of  these  small  parts, 
each  making  two  or  three  pages  at  most,  copied 
out  in  the  rudest  hand  of  the  then  prompter,  who 
doubtless  transcribed  a  little  more  carefully  and 
fairly  for  the  grown-up  tragedy  ladies  of  the  estab- 
lishment. But  such  as  they  were,  blotted  and 
scrawled  as  for  a  child's  use,  she  kept  them  all ;  and 
in  the  zenith  of  her  after  reputation  it  was  a  delight- 
ful sight  to  behold  them  bound  up  in  costliest  mo- 
rocco, each  single,  — each  small  part  making  a  dook, 
with  fine  clasps,  gilt-splashed,  etc.  She  had  con- 
scientiously kept  them  as  they  had  been  delivered 
to  her ;  not  a  blot  had  been  effaced  or  tampered 
with.  They  were  precious  to  her  for  their  affect- 
ing remembrancings.  They  were  her  pn'nc/pm, 
her  rudiments  ;  the  elementary  atoms,  the  little 
steps  by  which  she  pressed  forward  to  perfection. 
"  What,"'  she  would  say,  "could  India-rubber,  or 
a  pumice-stone,  have  done  for  these  darlings  ?  " 

I  am  in  no  hurry  to  begin  my  story, — indeed 
I  have  little  or  none  to  tell, — so  I  will  just  men- 
tion an  observation  of  hers  connected  with  that 
interesting  time. 

Not  long  before  she  died  I  had  been  discours- 
ing with  her  on  the  quantity  of  real  present  emo- 
tion which  a  great  tragic  performer  experiences 
during  acting.       I  ventured  to  think,  that  though 


:fi3arbara  S .  365 

in  the  first  instance  such  players  must  have  pos- 
sessed the  feeHngs  which  they  so  powerfully 
called  up  in  others,  yet  by  frequent  repetition 
those  feelings  must  become  deadened  in  great 
measure,  and  the  performer  trust  to  the  memory 
of  past  emotion,  rather  than  express  a  present 
one.  She  indignantly  repelled  the  notion,  that 
with  a  truly  great  tragedian  the  operation,  by 
which  such  effects  were  produced  upon  an  audi- 
ence, could  ever  degrade  itself  into  what  was 
purely  mechanical.  With  much  delicacy,  avoid- 
ing to  instance  in  her  S(?^experience,  she  told  me, 
that  so  long  ago  as  when  she  used  to  play  the  part 
of  the  little  Son  to  Mrs.  Porter's  Isabella  (I  think 
it  was),  when  that  impressive  actress  had  been 
bending  over  her  in  some  heartrending  colloquy, 
she  has  felt  real  hot  tears  come  trickling  from  her, 
which  (to  use  her  powerful  expression)  have  per- 
fectly scalded  her  back. 

I  am  not  quite  so  sure  that  it  was  Mrs.  Porter, 
but  it  was  some  great  actress  of  that  day.  The 
name  is  indifferent  ;  but  the  fact  of  the  scalding 
tears  I  most  distinctly  remember. 

I  was  always  fond  of  the  society  of  players, 
and  am  not  sure  that  an  impediment  in  my  speech 
(which  certainly  kept  me  out  of  the  pulpit)  even 
more  than  certain  personal  disqualifications, 
which  are  often  got  over  in  that  profession,  did 
not  prevent  me  at  one  time  of  life  from  adopting 
it.  I  have  had  the  honor  (I  must  ever  call  it) 
once  to  have  been  admitted  to  the  tea-table  of 
Miss  Kelly.  I  have  played  at  serious  w^hist  w^ith 
Mr.  Listen.  I  have  chatted  w^ith  ever  good- 
humored  Mrs.  Charles  Kemble.  I  have  conversed 
as  friend   to  friend  with  her  accomplished  hus- 


366  Bssa^s  of  JBUa, 

band.  I  have  been  indulged  with  a  classical  con- 
ference with  Macready  ;  and  with  a  sight  of  the 
Player-picture  gallery,  at  Mr.  Mathews',  when 
the  kind  owner,  to  remunerate  me  for  my  love  of 
the  old  actors  (whom  he  loves  so  much),  went 
over  it  with  me,  supplying  to  his  capital  collec- 
tion, what  alone  the  artist  could  not  give  them — 
voice  ;  and  their  living  motion.  Old  tones,  half- 
faded,  of  Dodd,  and  Parsons,  and  Baddeley,  have 
lived  again  for  me  at  his  bidding.  Only  Edwin 
he  could  not  restore  to  me.  I  have  supped  with 
;  but  I  am  growing  a  coxcomb. 

As  I  was  about  to  say, — at  the  desk  of  the  then 
treasurer  of  the  old  Bath  theatre, — not  Diamond's, 
— presented  herself  the  little  Barbara  S . 

The  parents  of  Barbara  had  been  in  reputable 
circumstances.  The  father  had  practised,  I  be- 
lieve, as  an  apothecary  in  the  town.  But  his 
practice,  from  causes  which  I  feel  my  own  in- 
firmity too  sensibly  that  way  to  arraign, — or 
perhaps  from  that  pure  infelicity  which  accom- 
panies some  people  in  their  walk  through  life,  and 
which  it  is  impossible  to  lay  at  the  door  of  impru- 
dence,— was  now  reduced  to  nothing.  They 
were  in  fact  in  the  very  teeth  of  starvation,  when 
the  manager,  who  knew  and  respected  them  in 
better  days,  took  the  little  Barbara  into  his  com- 
pany. 

At  the  period  I  commenced  with,  her  slender 
earnings  were  the  sole  support  of  the  family, 
including  two  younger  sisters.  I  must  throw 
a  veil  over  some  mortifying  circumstances. 
Enough  to  say,  that  her  Saturday's  pittance  was 
the  only  chance  of  a  Sunday's  (generally  their 
only)  meal  of  meat. 


^Barbara  S .  367 

One  thing  I  will  only  mention,  that  in  some 
child's  part,  where  in  her  theatrical  character  she 
was  to  sup  off  a  roast  fowl  (O  joy  to  Barbara  !), 
some  comic  actor,  who  was  for  the  night  caterer 
for  this  dainty — in  the  misguided  humor  of  his 
part,  threw  over  the  dish  such  a  quantity  of  salt 
(O  grief  and  pain  of  heart  to  Barbara  !) 
that  when  she  crammed  a  portion  of  it  into  her 
mouth,  she  was  obliged  sputteringly  to  reject  it  ; 
and  what  with  shame  of  her  ill-acted  part,  and 
pain  of  real  appetite  at  missing  such  a  dainty, 
her  little  heart  sobbed  almost  to  breaking,  till  a 
flood  of  tears,  which  the  well-fed  spectators  were 
totally  unable  to  comprehend,  mercifully  relieved 
her. 

This  was  the  little,  starved,  meritorious  maid, 
who  stood  before  old  Ravenscroft,  the  treasurer, 
for  her  Saturday's  payment. 

Ravenscroft  was  a  man,  I  have  heard  many 
old  theatrical  people  besides  herself  say,  of  all 
men  least  calculated  for  a  treasurer.  He  had  no 
head  for  accounts,  paid  away  at  random,  kept 
scarce  any  books,  and  summing  up  at  the  week's 
end,  if  he  found  himself  a  pound  or  so  deficient, 
blessed  himself  that  it  was  no  w^orse. 

Now  Barbara's  weekly  stipend  was  a  bare  half 
guinea.  By  mistake  he  popped  into  her  hand — a 
whole  one. 

Barbara  tripped  away. 

She  was  entirely  unconscious  at  first  of  the  mis- 
take ;  God  knows,  Ravenscroft  would  never  have 
discovered  it. 

But  when  she  had  got  down  to  the  first  of  those 
uncouth  landing-places,   she  became  sensible  of 


368  Essays  ot  EUa. 

an  unusual  weight  of  metal  pressing  her  little 
hand. 

Now  mark  the  dilemma. 

She  was  by  nature  a  good  child.  From  her 
parents  and  those  about  her  she  had  imbibed  no 
contrary  influence.  But  then  they  had  taught 
her  nothing.  Poor  men's  smoky  cabins  are  not 
always  porticos  of  moral  philosophy.  This  little 
maid  had  no  instinct  to  evil,  but  then  she  might 
be  said  to  have  no  fixed  principle.  She  had 
heard  honesty  commended,  but  never  dreamed 
of  its  application  to  herself.  She  thought  of  it  as 
something  which  concerned  grown-up  people, 
men  and  women.  She  had  never  known  tempta- 
tion, or  thought  of  preparing  resistance  against 
it. 

Her  first  impulse  was  to  go  back  to  the  old 
treasurer,  and  explain  to  him  his  blunder.  He 
was  already  so  confused  with  age,  besides  a 
natural  want  of  punctuality,  that  she  would  have 
had  some  difficulty  in  making  him  understand  it. 
She  saw  that  in  an  instant.  And  then  it  was  such 
a  bit  of  money  !  and  then  the  image  of  a  larger 
allowance  of  butcher's-meat  on  their  table  next 
day  came  across  her,  till  her  little  eyes  glistened, 
and  her  mouth  moistened.  But  then  I\Ir.  Ravens- 
croft  had  always  been  so  good-natured,  had  stood 
her  friend  behind  the  scenes,  and  even  recom- 
mended her  promotion  to  some  of  her  little  parts. 
But  again  the  old  man  was  reputed  to  be  worth  a 
world  of  money.  He  was  supposed  to  have  fifty 
pounds  a  year  clear  of  the  theatre.  And  then 
came  staring  upon  her  the  figures  of  her  little 
stockingless  and  shoeless  sisters.  And  when  she 
looked  at  her  own  neat  white  cotton  stockings, 


JSarbara  S ♦  369 

which  her  stituation  at  the  theatre  had  made  it 
indispensable  for  her  mother  to  provide  for  her, 
with  hard  straining  and  pinching  from  the  family 
stock,  and  thought  how  glad  she  should  be  to  cover 
their  poor  feet  with  the  same, — and  how  then 
they  could  accompany  her  to  rehearsals,  which 
they  had  hitherto  been  precluded  from  doing,  by 
reason  of  their  unfashionable  attire, — m  these 
thoughts  she  reached  the  second  landing-place, — 
the  second,  I  mean,  from  the  top, — for  there  was 
still  another  left  to  traverse. 

Now  virtue  support  Barbara  ! 

And  that  never- failing  friend  did  step  in, — for 
at  that  moment  a  strength  not  her  own,  I  have 
heard  her  say,  was  revealed  to  her, — a  reason 
above  reasoning, — and  without  her  own  agency, 
as  it  seemed  (for  she  never  felt  her  feet  to  move), 
she  found  herself  transported  back  to  the  individual 
desk  she  had  just  quitted,  and  her  hand  in  the  old 
hand  of  Ravenscroft,  who  in  silence  took  back 
the  refunded  treasure,  and  who  had  been  sitting 
(good  man)  insensible  to  the  lapse  of  minutes, 
which  to  her  were  anxious  ages,  and  from  that 
moment  a  deep  peace  fell  upon  her  heart,  and  she 
knew  the  quality  of  honesty. 

A  year  or  two's  unrepining  application  to  her 
profession  brightened  up  the  feet,  and  the  pros- 
pects, of  her  little  sisters,  set  the  whole  family 
upon  their  legs  again,  and  released  her  from  the 
difficulty  of  discussing  moral  dogmas  upon  a  land- 
ing-place. 

I  have  heard  her  say  that  it  was  a  surprise,  not 
much  short  of  mortification  to  her,  to  see  the  cool- 
ness with  which  the  old  man  pocketed  the  differ- 
ence, which  had  caused  her  such  mortal  throes. 
24 


370  £003120  ot  jeUa. 

This  anecdote  of  herself  I  had  in  the  year  1800, 
from  the  mouth  of  the  late  Mrs.  Crawford,*  then 
sixty-seven  years  of  age  (she  died  soon  after),  and 
to  her  struggles  upon  this  childish  occasion  I  have 
sometimes  ventured  to  think  her  indebted  for  that 
power  of  rending  the  heart  in  the  representation 
of  conflicting  emotions,  for  which  in  after-years 
she  was  considered  as  little  inferior  (if  at  all  so  in 
the  part  of  Lady  Randolph)  even  to  Mrs.  Siddons. 

*  The  maiden  name  of  this  lady  was  Street,  which  she 
changed  by  successive  marriages,  for  those  of  Dancer,  Barry, 
and  Crawford.  She  was  Mrs.  Crawford,  a  third  time  a  widow, 
when  I  knew  her. 


THE  TOMBS  IN  THE  ABBEY. 

IN  A  LETTER  TO    R S ,   ESQ. 

Though  in  some  points  of  doctrine,  and  per- 
haps of  discipline,  I  am  ditifident  of  lending  a 
perfect  assent  to  that  church  which  you  have  so 
worthily  historified,  yet  may  the  ill  time  never 
come  to  me,  when  with  a  chilled  heart  or  a 
portion  of  irreverent  sentiment,  I  shall  enter 
her  beautiful  and  time-hallowed  edifices.  Judge 
then  of  my  mortification  when,  after  attending 
the  choral  anthems  of  last  Wednesday  at  West- 
minster, and  being  desirous  of  renewing  my  ac- 
quaintance, after  lapsed  years,  with  the  tombs 
and  antiquities  there,  I  found  myself  excluded ; 
turned  out  like  a  dog,  or  some  profane  person, 
into  the  common  street,  with  feelings  not  very 
congenial  to  the  place,  or  to  the  solemn  service 
which  I  had  been  listening  to.  It  was  a  jar  after 
that  music. 

You  had  your  education  at  Westminster  \  and 
doubtless  among  those  dim  aisles  and  cloisters, 
you  must  have  gathered  much  of  that  devotional 
feeling  in  those  young  years,  on  which  your 
purest  mind  feeds  still — and  may  it  feed  !  The 
antiquarian  spirit,  strong  in  you,  and  gracefully 
blending  ever  with  the  religious,  may  have  been 
sown  in  you  among  those  wrecks  of  splendid 
mortality.     You  owe  it  to  the  place  of  your  edu- 

371 


372  lEes^^s  of  B«a, 

cation  ;  you  owe  it  to  your  learned  fondness  for 
the  architecture  of  your  ancestors  ;  you  owe  it  to 
the  venerableness  of  your  ecclesiastical  establish- 
ment, which  is  daily  lessened  and  called  in  ques- 
tion through  these  practices — to  speak  aloud  your 
sense  of  them  ;  never  to  desist  raising  your  voice 
against  them  till  they  be  totally  done  away  with 
and  abolished ;  till  the  doors  of  Westminster 
Abbey  be  no  longer  closed  against  the  decent 
though  low-in-purse,  enthusiast,  or  blameless 
devotee,  who  must  commit  an  injury  against  his 
family  economy,  if  he  would  be  indulged  with  a 
bare  admission  within  its  walls.  You  owe  it  to 
the  decencies  which  you  wish  to  see  maintained 
in  its  impressive  services,  that  our  cathedral  be 
no  longer  an  object  of  inspection  to  the  poor  at 
those  times  only,  in  which  they  must  rob  from 
their  attendance  on  the  worship  every  minute 
which  they  can  bestow  upon  the  fabric.  In  vain 
the  public  prints  have  taken  up  this  subject,  in 
vain  such  poor  nameless  writers  as  myself  express 
their  indignation.  A  word  from  you,  sir, — a  hint 
in  your  journal, — would  be  sufficient  to  fling  open 
the  doors  of  the  beautiful  temple  again,  as  we  can 
remember  them  when  we  were  boys.  At  that 
time  of  life,  what  would  the  imaginative  faculty 
(such  as  it  is)  in  both  of  us,  have  suffered,  if  the 
entrance  to  so  much  reflection  had  been  ob- 
structed by  the  demand  of  so  much  silver  ?  If  we 
had  scraped  it  up  to  gain  an  occasional  admis- 
sion (as  we  certainly  should  have  done),  would 
the  sight  of  those  old  tombs  have  been  as  impres- 
sive to  us  (while  we  have  been  weighing  anx- 
iously prudence  against  sentiment)  as  when  the 
gates  stood  open  as  those  of  the  adjacent  park ; 


^be  Xlomb6  m  tbe  Hbbes*  373 

when  we  could  walk  in  at  any  time,  as  the  mood 
brought  us,  for  a  shorter,  or  longer  time,  as  that 
lasted?  Is  the  being  shown  over  a  place  the 
same  as  silently  for  ourselves  detecting  the 
genius  of  it?  In  no  part  of  our  beloved  Abbey 
now  can  a  person  find  entrance  (out  of  service 
time)  under  the  sum  of  /wo  shillings.  The  rich 
and  the  great  will  smile  at  the  anticlimax,  pre- 
sumed to  lie  in  these  two  short  words.  But  you 
can  tell  them,  sir,  how  much  quiet  worth,  how 
much  capacity  for  enlarged  feeling,  how  much 
taste  and  genius,  may  coexist,  especially  in 
youth,  with  a  purse  incompetent  to  this  demand. 
A  respected  friend  of  ours,  during  his  late  visit  to 
the  metropolis,  presented  himself  for  admission  to 
St.  Pauls.  At  the  same  time  a  decently-clothed 
man,  with  as  decent  a  wife  and  child,  were  bar- 
gaining for  the  same  indulgence.  The  price  was 
only  twopence  each  person.  The  poor  but  decent 
man  hesitated,  desirous  to  go  in  ;  but  there  were 
three  of  them,  and  he  turned  away  reluctantly. 
Perhaps  he  wished  to  have  seen  the  Tomb  of  Nel- 
son. Perhaps  the  Interior  of  the  Cathedral  was 
his  object.  But  in  the  state  of  his  finances,  even 
sixpence  might  reasonably  seem  too  much.  Tell 
the  Aristocracy  of  the  country  (no  man  can  do  it 
more  impressively) ;  instruct  them  of  what  value 
these  insignificant  pieces  of  money,  these  minims 
to  their  sight,  may  be  to  their  humbler  brethren. 
Shame  these  Sellers  out  of  the  Temple.  Stifle 
not  the  suggestions  of  your  better  nature  with  the 
pretext,  that  an  indiscriminate  admission  would 
expose  the  Tombs  to  violation.  Remember  your 
boy-days.  Did  you  ever  see,  or  hear,  of  a  mob 
in  the  Abbey,  while  it  was  free  to  all  ?     Do  the 


374  1B63^^3  Ot  JBM. 

rabble  come  there,  or  trouble  their  heads  about 
such  speculations  ?  It  is  all  that  you  can  do  to 
drive  them  into  your  churches ;  they  do  not 
voluntarily  offer  themselves.  They  have,  alas  ! 
no  passion  for  antiquities  ;  for  tomb  of  king  or 
prelate,  sage  or  poet.  If  they  had,  they  would 
be  no  longer  the  rabble. 

For  forty  years  that  I  have  known  the  Fabric, 
the  only  well-attested  charge  of  violation  ad- 
duced, has  been — a  ridiculous  dismemberment 
committed  upon  the  effigy  of  that  amiable  spy, 
Major  Andre.  And  is  it  for  this — the  wanton  mis- 
chief of  some  school-boy,  fired  perhaps  with  raw 
notions  of  Transatlantic  Freedom — or  the  remote 
possibility  of  such  a  mischief  occurring  again,  so 
easily  to  be  prevented  by  stationing  a  constable 
within  the  walls,  if  the  vergers  are  incompetent 
to  the  duty, — is  it  upon  such  wretched  pretences 
that  the  people  of  England  are  made  to  pay  a 
new  Peter's  Pence  so  long  abrogated  ;  or  must 
content  themselves  with  contemplating  the 
ragged  Exterior  of  their  Cathedral  ?  The  mischief 
was  done  about  the  time  that  you  were  a  scholar 
there.  Do  you  know  any  thing  about  the  unfor- 
tunate relic  ? 


AMICUS  REDIVIVUS. 

Where  were  ye,  Nymphs,  when  the  remorseless  deep 
Closed  o'er  the  head  of  your  loved  Lycidas  ? 

I  DO  not  know  when  I  have  experienced  a 
stranger  sensation  than  on  seeing   my  old  friend 

G D ,  who  had  been  paying  me  a  morning 

visit  a  few  Sundays  back,  at  my  cottage  at  Isling- 
ton, upon  taking  leave,  instead  of  turning  down 
the  right-hand  path  by  which  he  had  entered — with 
staff  in  hand,  and  at  noon-day  deliberately  march 
right  forwards  into  the  midst  of  the  stream  that 
runs  by  us,  and  totally  disappear. 

A  spectacle  like  this  at  dusk  would  have  been 
appalling  enough  ;  but  in  the  broad  open  day- 
light to  witness  such  an  unreserved  motion  towards 
self-destruction  in  a  valued  friend,  took  from  me 
all  power  of  speculation. 

How  I  found  my  feet  I  know  not.  Conscious- 
ness was  quite  gone.  Some  spirit,  not  my  own, 
whirled  me  to  the  spot.  I  remember  nothing 
but  the  silvery  apparition  of  a  good  white  head 
emerging  ;  nigh  which  a  staff  (the  hand  unseen 
that  wielded  it)  pointed  upwards,  as  feeling  for  the 
skies.  In  a  moment  (if  time  was  in  that  time)  he 
was  on  my  shoulders,  and  I — freighted  with  a 
load  more  precious  than  his  who  bore  Anchises. 

And  here  I  cannot  but  do  justice  to  the  officious 
zeal  of  sundry  passers-by,  who,  albeit  arriving  a 

375 


376  JSsQn>^6  ot  iBlia, 

little  too  late  to  participate  in  the  honors  of  the 
rescue,  in  philanthropic  shoals  came  thronging  to 
communicate  their  advice  as  to  the  recovery  ; 
prescribing  variously  the  application  or  non-appli- 
cation, of  salt,  etc.,  to  the  person  of  the  patient. 
Life  meantime  was  ebbing  fast  away,  amidst  the 
stifle  of  conflicting  judgments,  when  one,  more 
sagacious  than  the  rest,  by  a  bright  thought,  pro- 
posed sending  for  the  Doctor.  Trite  as  the  counsel 
was,  and  impossible,  as  one  should  think,  to  be 
missed  on, — shall  I  confess  ? — in  this  emergency 
it  was  to  me  as  if  an  Angel  had  spoken.  Great 
previous  exertions — and  mine  had  not  been  incon- 
siderable— are  commonly  followed  by  a  debility 
of  purpose.     This  was  a  moment  of  irresolution. 

Monoculus — for  so,  in  default  of  catching  his 
true  name,  I  choose  to  designate  the  medical 
gentleman  who  now  appeared — is  a  grave,  middle 
aged  person,  who,  without  having  studied  at  the 
college,  or  truckled  to  the  pedantry  of  a  diploma, 
hath  employed  a  great  portion  of  his  valuable 
time  in  experimental  processes  upon  the  bodies 
of  unfortunate  fellow-creatures,  in  whom  the 
vital  spark,  to  mere  vulgar  thinking,  would  seem 
extinct  and  lost  forever.  He  omitted  no  occa- 
sion of  obtruding  his  services,  from  a  case  of 
common  surfeit  suffocation  to  the  ignobler  ob- 
structions, sometimes  induced  by  a  too  wilful 
application  of  the  plant  cannabis  outwardly.  But 
though  he  declineth  not  altogether  these  drier 
extinctions,  his  occupation  tendeth,  for  the  most 
part,  to  water-practice  ;  for  the  convenience  of 
which,  he  hath  judiciously  fixed  his  quarters  near 
the  grand  repository  of  the  stream  mentioned, 
where  day.  and  night,  from  his  little  watch-tower, 


Bmlcue  1ReMv?f\JU0.  377 

at  the  Middleton's  Head,  he  listeneth  to  detect  the 
wrecks  of  drowned  mortality, — partly,  as  he  saith, 
to  be  upon  the  spot, — and  partly,  because  the 
liquids  which  he  useth  to  prescribe  to  himself, 
and  his  patients,  on  these  distressing  occasions, 
are  ordinarily  more  conveniently  to  be  found  at 
these  common  hostelries  than  in  the  shops  and 
phials  of  the  apothecaries.  His  ear  hath  arrived 
to  such  finesse  by  practice,  that  it  is  reported  he 
can  distinguish  a  plunge  at  a  half  furlong  distance  ; 
and  can  tell  if  it  be  casual  or  deliberate.  He 
weareth  a  medal,  suspended  over  a  suit,  originally 
of  a  sad  brown,  but  which,  by  time  and  frequency 
of  nightly  divings,  has  been  dinged  into  a  true 
professional  sable.  He  passeth  by  the  name  of 
Doctor,  and  is  remarkable  for  wanting  his  left  eye. 
His  remedy — after  a  sufficient  application  of  warm 
blankets,  friction,  etc.,  is  a  simple  tumbler  or 
more,  of  the  purest  cognac,  with  water,  made  as 
hot  as  the  convalescent  can  bear  it.  Where  he 
findeth,  as  in  the  case  of  my  friend,  a  squeamish 
subject,  he  condescendeth  to  be  the  taster  ;  and 
showeth,  by  his  own  example,  the  innocuous 
nature  of  the  prescription.  Nothing  can  be  more 
kind  or  encouraging  than  this  procedure.  It 
addeth  confidence  to  the  patient,  to  see  his  medi- 
cal adviser  go  hand  in  hand  with  himself  in  the 
remedy.  When  the  doctor  swallow eth  his  own 
draught,  what  peevish  invalid  can  refuse  to  pledge 
him  in  the  potion  ?  In  fine,  Monoculus  is  a  hu- 
mane, sensible  man,  who,  for  a  slender  pittance, 
scarce  enough  to  sustain  life,  is  content  to  wear 
it  out  in  the  endeavor  to  save  the  lives  of  others, 
— his  pretensions  so  moderate,  that  with  difficulty 
I  could  press  a  crown  upon  him,  for  the  price  of 


378  Es5a^5  of  :eua. 

restoring  the  existence  of  such  an  invaluable 
creature  to  society  as  G.  D. 

It  was  pleasant  to  observe  the  effect  of  the  sub- 
siding alarm  upon  the  nerves  of  the  dear  absentee. 
It  seemed  to  have  given  a  shake  to  memory,  call- 
ing up  notice  after  notice  of  all  the  providential 
deliverances  he  had  experienced  in  the  course 
of  his  long  and  innocent  life.  Sitting  up  in  my 
couch, — my  couch  which,  naked  and  void  of  fur- 
niture hitherto,  for  the  salutary  repose  which  it 
administered,  shall  be  honored  with  costly  val- 
ance, at  some  price,  and  henceforth  be  a  state- 
bed  at  Colebrook, — he  discoursed  of  marvelous 
escapes — by  carelessness  of  nurses — by  pails  of 
gelid,  and  kettles  of  the  boiling  element  in  infancy 
— by  orchard  pranks,  and  snapping  twigs,  in 
school-boy  frolics — by  descent  of  tiles  at  Trump- 
ington,  and  of  heavier  tomes  at  Pembroke — by 
studious  watchings,  inducing  frightful  vigilance 
— by  want,  and  the  fear  of  want,  and  all  the  sore 
throbbings  of  the  learned  head.  Anon,  he  would 
burst  out  into  little  fragments  of  chanting — of 
songs  long  ago — ends  of  deliverance  hymns,  not 
remembered  before  since  childhood,  but  coming 
up  now,  when  his  heart  was  made  tender  as  a 
child's, — for  the  tremor  cordis,  in  the  retrospect  of 
a  recent  deliverance,  as  in  a  case  of  impending 
danger,  acting  upon  an  innocent  heart,  will  pro- 
duce a  self-tenderness,  which  we  should  do  ill  to 
christen  cowardice  ;  and  Shakespeare,  in  the  latter 
crisis,  has  made  his  good  Sir  Hugh  to  remember 
the  sitting  by  Babylon,  and  to  mutter  of  shallow 
rivers. 

Waters  of  Sir  Hugh  Middleton — what  a  spark 
you    were    like    to    have    extinguished   forever ! 


amicua  IReMvivus.  379 

Your  salubrious  streams  to  this  city,  for  now 
near  two  centuries,  would  hardly  have  atoned  for 
what  you  were  in  a  moment  washing  away. 
Mockery  of  a  river, — liquid  artifice, — wretched 
conduit !  henceforth  rank  with  canals,  and  slug- 
gish aqueducts.  Was  it  for  this  that,  smit  in 
boyhood  with  the  explorations  of  that  Abyssinian 
traveler,  I  paced  the  vales  of  Amwell  to  explore 
your  tributary  springs,  to  trace  your  salutory 
waters  sparkling  through  green  Hertfordshire,  and 
cultured  Enfield  parks  ? — Ye  have  no  swans — no 
Naiads — no  river  God, — or  did  the  benevolent 
hoary  aspect  of  my  friend  tempt  ye  to  suck  him 
in,  that  ye  also  might  have  the  tutelary  genius  of 
your  waters  ? 

Had  he  been  drowned  in  Cam,  there  would 
have  been  some  consonancy  in  it  ;  but  what  wil- 
lows had  ye  to  wave  and  rustle  over  his  moist 
sepulture  ? — or,  having  no  name,  besides  that 
unmeaning  assumption  of  eteriial  novity,  did  ye 
think  to  get  one  by  the  noble  prize,  and  hence- 
forth to  be  termed  the  Stream  Dyerian  ? 

And  could  such  spacious  virtue  find  a  grave 
Beneath  the  imposthumed  bubble  of  a  wave  t 

I  protest,  George,  you  shall  not  venture  out 
again — no,  not  by  daylight — without  a  sufficient 
pair  of  spectacles — ,in  your  musing  moods  espe- 
cially. Your  absence  of  mind  we  have  borne, 
till  your  presence  of  body  came  to  be  called  in 
question  by  it.  You  shall  not  go  wandering  into 
Euripus  with  Aristotle,  if  we  can  help  it.  Fie, 
man,  to  turn  dipper  at  your  years,  after  your 
many  tracts  in  favor  of  sprinkling  only  1 


380  Essays  of  Blia. 

I  have  nothing  but  water  in  my  head  o'  nights 
since  this  frightful  accident.  Sometimes  I  am 
with  Clarence  in  his  dream.  At  others,  1  behold 
Christian  beginning  to  sink,  and  crying  out  to  his 
good  brother  Hopeful  (that  is,  to  me),  "  I  sink  in 
deep  waters  :  the  billows  go  over  my  head,  all 
the  waves  go  over  me.  Selah. "  Then  I  have 
before  me  Palinurus,  just  letting  go  the  steerage. 
I  cry  out  too  late  to  save.  Next  follow — a 
mournful  procession — suicidal  faces,  saved  against 
their  will  from  drowning  ;  dolefully  trailing  a 
length  of  reluctant  gratefulness,  with  ropy  weeds 
pendent  from  locks  of  watchet  hue, — constrained 
Lazari, — Pluto's  half-subjects, — stolen  fees  from 
the  grave, — bilking  Charon  of  his  fare.  At  their 
head  Arion — or  is  it  G.  D.  } — in  his  singing  gar- 
ments marcheth  singly,  with  harp  in  hand,  and 
votive  garland,  which  Machaon  (or  Dr.  Hawes) 
snatcheth  straight,  intending  to  suspend  it  to  the 
stern  God  of  Sea.  Then  follow  dismal  streams  of 
Lethe,  in  which  the  half-drenched  on  earth  are 
constrained  to  drown  outright,  by  wharves  where 
Ophelia  twice  acts  her  muddy  death. 

And,  doubtless,  there  is  some  notice  in  that 
invisible  world,  when  one  of  us  approacheth  (as 
my  friend  did  so  lately)  to  their  inexorable  pre- 
cincts. When  a  soul  knocks  once,  twice,  at  death's 
door,  the  sensation  aroused  within  the  palace  must 
be  considerable  ;  and  the  grim  Feature,  by  mod- 
ern science  so  often  dispossessed  of  his  prey,  must 
have  learned  by  this   time  to  pity  Tantalus. 

A  pulse  assuredly  was  felt  along  the  line  of 
the  Elysian  shades,  when  the  near  arrival  ofG.  D. 
was  announced  by  no  equivocal  indications. 
From  their  seats  of  Asphodel  arose  the  gentler 


amicus  1ReOiv(vu5.  381 

and  the  graver  ghosts — poet,  or  historian — of  Gre- 
cian or  of  Roman  lore. — to  crown  with  unfading 
chaplets  the  half-finished  love-labors  of  their 
unwearied  scholiast.  Him  Markland  expected, — 
him  Tyrwhitt  hoped  to  encounter, — him  the  sweet 
lyrist  of  Peter  House,  whom  he  had  barely  seen 
upon  earth,*  with   newest   airs  prepared  to  greet 

;  and,  patron   of   the  gentle    Christ's   boy — 

who  should  have  been  his  patron  through  life, 
— the  mild  Askew,  with  longing  aspirations, 
leaned  foremost  from  his  venerable  ^sculapian 
chair,  to  welcome  into  that  happy  company  the 
matured  virtues  of  the  man,  whose  tender  scions 
in  the  boy  he  himself  upon  earth  had  so  prophet- 
ically fed  and  watered. 

*  Graium   tantum  vidit. 


SOME   SONNETS  OF  SIR   PHILIP  SYDNEY. 


Sydney's  Sonnets — I  speak  of  the  best  of  them — 
are  among  the  very  best  of  their  sort.  They  fall 
below  the  plain  moral  dignity,  the  sanctity,  and 
high  yet  most  modest  spirit  of  self-approval,  of 
Milton,  in  his  compositions  of  a  similar  structure. 
They  are  in  truth  what  Milton,  censuring  the  Arca- 
dia, says  of  that  work  (to  which  they  are  a  sort  of 
after-tune  or  application),  ' '  vain  and  amatorious  " 
enough,  yet  the  things  in  their  kind  (as  he  con- 
fesses to  be  true  of  the  romance)  may  be  "  full  of 
worth  and  wit."  They  savor  of  the  courtier,  it 
must  be  allowed,  and  not  of  the  commonwealths- 
man.  But  Milton  was  a  courtier  when  he  wrote 
the  Masque  at  Ludlow  Castle,  and  still  more 
a  courtier  when  he  composed  the  Arcades.  When 
the  national  struggle  was  to  begin,  he  becom- 
ingly cast  these  vanities  behind  him  ;  and  if  the 
order  of  time  had  thrown  Sir  Philip  upon  the  crisis 
which  preceded  the  Revolution,  there  is  no  reason 
why  he  should  not  have  acted  the  same  part  in 
that  emergency,  which  has  glorified  the  name  of 
a  later  Sydney.  He  did  not  want  for  plainness 
or  boldness  of  spirit.  His  letter  on  the  French 
match  may  testify  he  could  speak  his  mind  freely  to 
princes.   The  times  did  not  call  him  to  the  scaffold. 

The  sonnets  which  we  oftenest  call  to  mind  of 
Milton  were  the  compositions  of  his  maturest 
years.  Those  of  Sydney,  which  I  am  about  to 
382 


Some  Sonnets  of  Six  IPbiUp  SgOne^.     383 

produce,  were  written  in  the  very  heyday  of  his 
blood.  They  are  stuck  full  of  amorous  fancies — 
far-fetched  conceits,  befitting  his  occupation  ;  for 
True  Love  thinks  no  labor  to  send  out  Thoughts 
upon  the  vast,  and  more  than  Indian  voyages,  to 
bring  home  rich  pearls,  outlandish  wealth,  gums, 
jewels,  spicery,  to  sacrifice  in  self-depreciating 
similitudes,  as  shadows  of  true  amiabilities  in  the 
Beloved.  We  must  be  lovers — or  at  least  the 
cooling  touch  of  time,  the  circum  prcecordiafrigus, 
must  not  have  so  damped  our  faculties,  as  to  take 
away  our  recollection  that  we  were  once  so — be- 
fore we  can  duly  appreciate  the  glorious  vani- 
ties, and  graceful  hyperboles  of  the  passion.  The 
images  which  lie  before  our  feet  (though  by 
some  accounted  the  only  natural)  are  least  natural 
for  the  high  Sydnean  love  to  express  its  fancies 
by.  They  may  serve  for  the  loves  of  Tibullus, 
or  the  dear  Author  of  the  Schoolmistress  ;  for 
passions  that  creep  and  whine  in  Elegies  and 
Pastoral  Ballads.  I  am  sure  Milton  never  loved 
at  this  rate.  I  am  afraid  some  of  his  addresses 
{ad  Leonoram,  I  mean)  have  rather  erred  on  the 
farther  side  ;  and  that  the  poet  came  not  much 
short  of  a  religious  indecorum,  when  he  could 
thus  apostrophize  a  singing-girl  : — 

Angelus  unicuique  suus  (sic  credite  gentes) 

Obtigit  aethereis  ales  ab  ordinibui. 
Quid  mirum,  Leonora,  tibi  si  gloria  major, 

Nam  tua  presentem  vox  sonat  ipsa  Ueum  ? 
Aut  Deus,  aut  vacui  certe  mens  tertia  coeli, 

Per  tua  secreto  guttura  serpit  agens  ; 
Serpit  agens,  facilisque  docet  mortalia  corda 

Sensim  immortalia  assuescere  posse  sono, 
Quod    si    cuncta    quidem    Deus   est,   Per  cunctaque 

FUSUS, 
IN  TE  UNA  LOQUITUR,  CETERA  MUTUS  HABET. 


384  B36avs  ot  BUa. 

This  is  loving-  in  a  strange  fashion  ;  and  it 
requires  sonrie  candor  of  construction  (besides  the 
slight  darkening  of  a  dead  language)  to  cast  a 
veil  over  the  ugly  appearance  of  something  very 
like  blasphemy  in  the  last  two  verses.  I  think  the 
Lover  would  have  been  staggered,  if  he  had  gone 
about  to  express  the  same  thought  in  English.  I 
am  sure  Sydney  had  no  flights  like  this.  His  ex- 
travaganzas do  not  strike  at  the  sky,  though  he 
takes  leave  to  adopt  the  pale  Dian  into  a  fellow- 
ship with  his  mortal  passions. 


With  how  sad  steps,  O  Moon,  thou  climb'st  the  skies ; 

How  silently  ;  and  with  how  wan  a  face  ? 

What  !  may  it  be  that  even  in  heavenly  place 

That  busy  Archer  his  sharp  arrows  tries  ? 

Sure,  if  that  long-with-love-acquainted  eyes 

Can  judge  of  love,  thou  feel'st  a  lover's  case  ; 

I  read  it  in  thy  looks  ;  thy  languish  t  grace 

To  me,  that  feel  the  like,  thy  state  descries. 

Then,  even  of  fellowship,  O  Moon,  tell  me, 

Is  constant  love  deem'd  there  but  want  of  wit  } 

Are  beauties  there  as  proud  as  here  they  be  .■* 

Do  they  above  love  to  be  loved,  and  yet 

Those  lovers  scorn,  whom  that  love  doth  possess  ? 

Do  they  call  virtue  there — ungratefulness  I 

This  last  line  of  this  poem  is  a  little  obscured  by 
transposition.  He  means,  Do  they  call  ungrate- 
fulness there  a  virtue  ? 


ir. 


Come  Sleep,  O  Sleep,  the  certain  knot  of  peace, 
The  baiting  place  of  wit,  the  balm  of  woe, 
The  poor  man's  wealth,  the  prisoner's  release, 
The  indifferent  judge  between  the  high  and  low  , 


Some  Sonnets  ot  Sic  iPbilip  Si^Dne^,      385 

With  shield  of  proof  shield  me  from  out  of  the  prease  * 
Of  those  fierce  darts  despair  at  me  doth  throw  ; 

0  make  in  me  those  civil  wars  to  cease  ! 

1  will  good  tribute  pay,  if  thou  do  so. 

Take  thou  of  me  sweet  pillows,  sweetest  bed  ; 
A  chamber  deaf  to  noise,  and  blind  to  light ; 
A  rosy  garland,  and  a  weary  head. 
And  if  these  things,  as  being  thine  by  right, 
Move  not  thy  heavy  grace,  thou  shalt  in  me, 
Livelier  than  elsewhere,  Stella's  image  see. 


in. 

The  curious  wits,  seeing  dull  pensiveness 
Bewray  itself  in  my  long-settled  eyes, 
Whence  those  same  fumes  of  melancholy  rise 
With  idle  pains,  and  missing  aim,  do  guess. 
Some,  that  know  how  my  spring  I  did  address, 
Deem  that  my  Muse  some  fruit  of  knowledge  plies ; 
Others,  because  the  Prince  my  service  tries. 
Think,  that  I  think  state  errors  to  redress  ; 
But  harder  judges  judge,  ambition's  rage, 
Scourge  of  itself,  still  climbing  slippery  place, 
Holds  my  young  brain  captived  in  golden  cage. 
O  fools,  or  overwise  !  alas,  the  race 
Of  all  my  thoughts  hath  neither  stop  nor  start, 
But  only  Stella's  eyes,  and  Stella's  heart. 


IV. 

Because  I  oft  in  dark  abstracted  guise 

Seem  most  alone  in  greatest  company, 

With  dearth  of  words  or  answers  quite  awry 

To  them  that  would  make  speech  of  speech  arise  | 

They  deem,  and  of  their  doom  the  rumor  flies, 

That  poison  foul  of  bubbling  Pride  doth  Ue 

So  in  my  swelling  breast,  that  only  I 

Fawn  on  myself,  and  others  do  despise  ; 

Yet  Pride,  I  think,  doth  not  my  soul  possess 

Which  looks  too  oft  in  his  unflattering  glass  | 


♦  Press. 
25 


386  16653^6  Ot  iSlidi, 

But  one  worse  fault — Ambition — I  confess, 
That  makes  me  oft  my  best  friends  overpass, 
Unseen,  unheard — while  Thought  to  highest  place 
Bends  all  his  powers,  even  unto  Stella's  grace. 


Having  this  day,  my  horse,  my  hand,  my  lance. 
Guided  so  well  that  I  obtained  the  prize. 
Both  by  the  judgment  of  the  English  eyes, 
And  of  some  sent  by  that  sweet  enemy, — France, 
Horsemen  my  skill  in  horsemanship  advance  ; 
Townsfolk  my  strength  ;  a  daintier  judge  applies 
His  praise  to  slight,  which  from  good  use  doth  rise  ; 
Some  lucky  wits  impute  it  but  to  chance  ; 
Others,  because  of  both  sides  I  do  take 
My  blood  from  them,  who  did  excel  in  this, 
Think  Nature  me  a  man  of  arms  did  make. 
How  far  they  shot  awry  !  the  true  cause  is, 
Stella  looked  on,  and  from  her  heavenly  face 
Sent  forth  the  beams  which  made  so  fair  my  race. 

VL 

In  martial  sports  I  had  my  cunning  tried, 

And  yet  to  break  more  staves  did  me  address, 

While  with  the  people's  shouts  (I  must  confess) 

Youth,  luck,  and  praise,  even  fiU'd  my  veins  with  pridf 

When  Cupid  having  me  (his  slave)  descried 

In  Mars'  livery,  prancing  in  the  press, 

"  What  now,  Sir  Fool !  "  said  he  :  "I  would  no  less, 

Look  here,  I  say."     I  look'd,  and  Stella  spied, 

Who  hard  by  made  a  window  send  forth  light. 

My  heart  then  quaked,  then  dazzled  were  mine  eyes. 

One  hand  forgot  to  rule,  th'  other  to  fight  ; 

Nor  trumpet's  sound  I  heard,  nor  friendly  cries. 

My  foe  came  on,  and  beat  the  air  for  me — 

Till  that  her  blush  made  me  my  shame  to  see. 


No  more,  my  dear,  no  more  these  counsels  try ; 
O  give  my  passions  leave  to  run  their  race  ! 
Let  Fortune  lay  on  me  her  worst  disgrace  ; 
Let  folk  o'ercharged  with  brain  against  me  cry ; 


Some  Sonnets  of  Sir  ipbllfp  S^C>ne^.      387 

Let  clouds  bedim  my  face,  break  in  mine  eye  ; 

Let  me  no  steps,  but  of  lost  labor,  trace  ; 

Let  all  the  earth  with  scorn  recount  my  case,— 

But  do  not  will  me  from  my  love  to  fly. 

I  do  not  envy  Aristotle's  wit, 

Nor  do  aspire  to  Caesar's  bleeding  fame  \ 

Nor  aught  do  care,  though  some  above  me  sit ; 

Nor  hope,  nor  wish,  another  course  to  frame, 

But  that  which  once  may  win  thy  cruel  heart. 

Thou  art  my  wit,  and  thou  my  virtue  art. 

VIII. 

Love  still  a  boy,  and  oft  a  wanton,  is,      "^ 

School'd  only  by  his  mother's  tender  eye; 

What  wonder  then,  if  he  his  lesson  miss. 

When  for  so  soft  a  rod  dear  play  he  try  ? 

And  yet  my  Star,  because  a  sugar' d  kiss 

In  sport  I  suck'd,  while  she  asleep  did  lie, 

Doth  lour,  nay  chide,  nay  threat,  for  only  this. 

Sweet,  it  was  saucy  Love,  not  humble  I. 

But  no  'scuse  serves ;  she  makes  her  wrath  appear 

In  beauty's  throne, — see  now  who  dares  come  near,  ^ 

Those  scarlet  judges,  threat'ning  bloody  pain  ? 

O  heav'nly  Fool,  thy  most  kiss-worthy  face 

Anger  invests  with  such  a  lovely  grace, 

That  anger's  self  I  needs  must  kiss  again! 


I  never  drank  of  Aganippi  well, 

Nor  ever  did  in  shade  of  Tempe  sit. 

And  Muses  scorn  with  vulgar  brains  to  dwell ; 

Poor  layman  I,  for  sacred  rites  unfit. 

Some  do  I  hear  of  Poet's  fury  tell, 

But  {God  wot)  wot  not  what  they  mean  by  it; 

And  this  I  swear  by  blackest  brook  of  hell, 

I  am  no  pick-purse  of  another's  wit. 

How  falls  it  then,  that  with  so  smooth  an  ease 

My  thoughts  I  speak,  and  what  I  speak  doth  flow 

In  verse,  and  that  my  verse  best  wits  doth  please  ? 

Guess  me  the  cause — what  is  it  thus  ? — fye,  no. 

Or  so  ? — much  less.     How  then  ?  sure  thus  it  is, 

My  lips  are  sweet,  inspired  with  Stella's  kiss. 


388  iBse^^B  of  leifa. 

X. 

Of  all  the  kings  that  ever  here  did  reign, 
Edward,  named  Fourth,  as  first  in  praise  I  name, 
Not  for  his  fair  outside,  nor  well-lined  brain, — 
Although  less  gifts  imp  feathers  oft  on  Fame. 
Not  that  he  could,  young-wise,  wise-valiant,  frame 
His  sire's  revenge,  join'd  with  a  kingdom's  gain, 
And,  gain'd  by  Mars  could  yet  mad  Mars  so  tame. 
That  Balance  weigh'd  what  Sword  did  late  obtain, 
Nor  that  he  made  the  Floure-de-luce  so  'fraid. 
Though  strongly  hedged  of  bloody  Lion's  paws, 
That  witty  Lewis  to  him  a  tribute  paid. 
Nor  this,  nor  that,  nor  any  such  small  cause, — 
But  only,  for  this  worthy  knight  durst  prove 
To  lose  his  crown  rather  than  fail  his  love. 


XI. 

0  happy  Thames,  that  didst  my  Stella  bear, 

1  saw  thyself,  with  many  a  smiling  line 
Upon  thy  cheerful  face,  Joy's  livery  wear. 
While  those  fair  planets  on  thy  streams  did  shine 
The  boat  for  joy  could  not  to  dance  forbear, 
While  wanton  winds,  with  beauty  so  divine 
Ravish'd,  stay'd  not,  till  in  her  golden  hair 
They  did  themselves  (O  sweetest  prison  ! )  twine. 
And  fain  those  ^ol's  youth  there  would  their  stay 
Have  made  ;  but  forced  by  nature  still  to  fly, 
First  did  with  puffing  kiss  those  locks  display. 
She,  so  disheveird,  blush'd  ;  from  window  I 
W^ith  sight  thereof  cried  out :  O  fair  disgrace, 
Let  honor's  self  to  thee  grant  highest  place  1 

XII. 

Highway,  since  you  my  chief  Parnassus  be ; 
And  that  my  Muse,  to  some  ears  not  unsweet, 
Tempers  her  words  to  trampling  horses'  feet, 
More  soft  than  to  a  chamber  melody  ; 
Now  Blessed  You  bear  onward  blessed  Me 
To  Her,  where  I  my  heart  safe  left  shall  meet, 
My  Muse  and  I  must  you  of  duty  greet 
With  thanks  and  wishes,  wishing  thankfully, 


Some  Sonnets  ot  Sir  ipbilip  Ss^nes.      389 

Be  you  still  fair,  honor'd  by  public  heed, 

By  no  enroachment  wrong' d,  nor  time  forgot; 

Nor  blamed  for  blood,  nor  shamed  for  sinful  deed  . 

And  that  you  know,  I  envy  you  no  lot 

Of  highest  wish,  I  wish  you  so  much  bliss. 

Hundreds  of  years  you  Stella's  feet  may  kiss. 

Of  the  foregoing,  the  first,  the  second,  and  the 
last  sonnets,  are  my  favorites.  But  the  general 
beauty  of  them  all  is,  that  they  are  so  perfectly 
characteristical.  The  spirit  of '' learning  and  of 
chivalry," — of  which  union,  Spencer  has  entitled 
Sydney  to  have  been  the  "president," — shines 
through  them.  I  confess  I  can  see  nothing  of  the 
''jejune  "  or  "frigid  "  in  them  ;  much  less  of  the 
"stiff"  and  "cumbrous," — which  I  have  some- 
times heard  objected  to  the  Arcadia.  The  verse 
runs  off  swiftly  and  gallantly.  It  might  have 
been  tuned  to  the  trumpet  ;  or  tempered  (as 
himself  expresses  it)  to  "trampling  horses' feet." 
They  abound  in  felicitous  phrases, — 

O  heav'nly  Fool,  thy  most  kiss-worthy  face — 

d>t/i  Sonnet. 

Sweet  pillows,  sweetest  bed  ; 
A  chamber  deaf  to  noise,  and  blind  to  light; 
•     A  rosy  garland,  and  a  weary  head. 

2d  Sonnet, 

That  sweet  enemy  — France — 

^th  Son?iet. 


But  they  are  not  rich  in  words  only,  in  vague 
and  unlocalized  feelings, — the  failing  too  much  of 
some  poetry  of  the  present  day, — they  are  full, 
material,  and  circumstantiated.  Time  and  place 
appropriates  every  one  of  them.     It  is  not  a  fever 


390  B66as3  of  iSUa* 

of  passion  wasting  itself  upon  a  thin  diet  of  dainty 
works,  but  a  transcendent  passion  pervading  and 
illuminating  action,  pursuits,  studies,  feats  of 
arms,  the  opinions  of  contemporaries  and  his 
judgment  of  them.  An  historical  thread  runs 
through  them,  which  almost  affixes  a  date  to 
them,  marks  the  when  and  where  they  were 
written. 

I  have  dwelt  the  longer  upon  what  I  conceive 
the  merit  of  these  poems,  because  I  have  been 
hurt  by  the  wantonness  (I  wish  I  could  treat  it  by 
a  gentler  name)  with  which  W.  H.  takes  every 
occasion  of  insulting  the  memory  of  Sir  Philip 
Sydney.  But  the  decisions  of  the  Author  of 
Table  Talk,  etc.  (most  profound  and  subtle  where 
they  are,  as  for  the  most  part,  just),  are  more 
safely  to  be  relied  upon  on  subjects  and  authors 
he  has  a  partiality  for,  than  on  such  as  he  has 
conceived  an  accidental  prejudice  against.  Mil- 
ton wrote  Sonnets,  and  was  a  king-hater ;  and  it 
was  congenial  perhaps  to  sacrifice  a  courtier  to  a 
patriot.  But  I  was  unwilling  to  lose  a  Jifie  idea 
from  my  mind.  The  noble  images,  passions, 
sentiments,  and  poetical  delicacies  of  character, 
scattered  all  over  the  Arcadia,  (spite  of  some  stiff- 
ness and  encumberment,)  justify  to  me  the  char- 
acter which  his  contemporaries  have  left  us  of  the 
writer.  I  cannot  think  with  the  Critic,  that  Sir 
Philip  Sydney  was  that  opprobrious  thing  which  a 
foolish  nobleman  in  his  insolent  hostility  chose  to 
term  him.  I  call  to  mind  the  epitaph  made  on 
him,  to  guide  me  to  juster  thoughts  of  him  ;  and 
I  repose  upon  the  beautiful  lines  in  the  "  Friend's 
Passion  for  his  Astrophel,"  printed  with  the  Ele- 
gies of  Spencer  and  others. 


Some  Sonnet6  ot  Sic  PbiUp  Ss^nes.      391 

You  knew— who  knew  not  Astrophel  ? 

(That  I  should  live  to  say  I  knew, 

And  have  not  in  possession  still ! ) — 

Things  known  permit  me  to  renew — 
Of  him  you  know  his  merit  such, 
I  cannot  say — you  hear — too  much. 

Within  these  woods  of  Arcady 

He  chief  delight  and  pleasure  took ; 

And  on  the  mountain  Parthney, 

Upon  the  crystal  liquid  brook, 
The  Muses  meet  him  every  day, 
That  taught  him  sing,  to  write  and  say. 

When  he  descended  down  the  mount, 
His  personage  seemed  most  divine ; 
A  thousand  graces  one  might  count 
Upon  his  lovely  cheerful  eyne. 

To  hear  him  speak  and  sweetly  smile, 

You  were  in  Paradise  the  while, 

A  sweet  attractive  kind  of  grace  ; 

A  full  assurance  given  by  looks  ; 

Continual  comfort  in  a  face. 

The  lineaments  of  Gospel  books — 
I  trow  that  countenance  cannot  lye, 
Whose  thoughts  are  legible  in  the  eye. 


Above  all  others  this  is  he. 
Which  erst  approved  in  his  song. 
That  love  and  honor  might  agree, 
And  that  pure  love  will  do  no  wrong. 
Sweet  saints,  it  is  no  sin  or  blame 
To  love  a  man  of  virtuous  name. 

Did  ever  love  so  sweetly  breathe 
In  any  mortal  breast  before  : 
Did  never  Muse  inspire  beneath 
A  Poet's  brain  with  finer  store. 

He  wrote  of  Love  with  high  conceit. 
And  beauty  rear'd  above  her  height. 


392  Bssa^s  ot  }6lla. 

Or  let  any  one  read  the  deeper  sorrows  (gfrief 
running  into  rage)  in  the  poem, — the  last  in  the 
collection  accompanying  the  above, — which  from 
internal  testimony  I  believe  to  be  Lord  Brooke's, 
beginning  with  "Silence  augmenteth  grief,"  and 
then  seriously  ask  himself,  whether  the  subject  of 
such  absorbing  and  confounding  regrets  could 
have  been  thai  thing  which  Lord  Oxford  termed 
him. 


NEWSPAPERS  THIRTY-FIVE  YEARS  AGO; 


Dan  Stuart  once  told  us  that  he  did  not  remem- 
ber that  he  ever  deliberately  walked  into  the  Ex- 
hibition at  Somerset  House  in  his  life.  He  might 
occasionally  have  escorted  a  party  of  ladies  across 
the  way  that  were  going  in  ;  but  he  never  went  in 
of  his  own  head.  Yet  the  office  of  Jhe  Morning 
Post  newspaper  stood  then  just  where  it  does 
now, — we  are  carrying  you  back,  Reader,  some 
thirty  years  or  more, — with  its  gilt-globe- topt 
front  facing  that  emporium  of  our  Artists'  grand 
Annual  Exposure.  We  sometimes  wish  that  we 
had  observed  the  same  abstinence  with  Daniel. 

A  word  or  two  of  D.  S.  He  ever  appeared  to 
us  one  of  the  finest-tempered  of  Editors.  Perry, 
of  The  Morning  Chronicle,  was  equally  pleasant, 
with  a  dash,  no  slight  one  either,  of  the  courtier. 
S.  was  frank,  plain,  and  English  all  over.  We 
have  worked  for  both  these  gentlemen. 

It  is  soothing  to  contemplate  the  head  of  the 
Ganges  ;  to  trace  the  first  little  bubblings  of  a 
mighty  river  : 

With  holy  reverence  to  approach  the  rocks, 
Whence  glide  the  streams  renowned  in  ancient  song. 

Fired  with  a  perusal  of  the  Abyssinian  pilgrim's 
exploratory  ramblings  after  the  cradle  of  the  infant 

393 


394  Essays  ot  JElfa, 

Nilus,  we  well  remember  on  one  fine  summer 
holiday  (a  '* whole  days  leave,"  we  called  it  at 
Christ's  Hospital)  sallying  forth  at  rise  of  sun,  not 
very  well  provisioned  either  for  such  an  under- 
taking, to  trace  the  current  of  the  New  River — 
Middletonian  stream  ! — to  its  scaturient  source, 
as  we  had  read,  in  meadows  by  fair  Am  well. 
Gallantly  did  we  commence  our  solitary  quest, — 
for  it  was  essential  to  the  dignity  of  a  Discovery, 
that  no  eye  of  schoolboy,  save  our  own,  should 
beam  on  the  detection.  By  flowery  spots,  and 
verdant  lanes  skirting  Hornsey,  hope  trained  us 
on  in  many  a  baffling  turn ;  endless,  hopeless 
meanders,  as  it  seemed ;  or  as  if  the  jealous 
waters  had  dodged  us,  reluctant  to  have  the  hum- 
ble spot  of  their  nativity  revealed  ;  till  spent,  and 
nigh  famished,  before  set  of  the  same  sun,  we  sat 
down  somewhere  by  Bowes  Farm  near  Totten- 
ham, with  a  tithe  of  our  proposed  labors  only  yet 
accomplished ;  sorely  convinced  in  spirit,  that 
that  Brucian  enterprise  was  as  yet  too  arduous 
for  our  young  shoulders. 

Not  more  refreshing  to  the  thirsty  curiosity  of 
the  traveller  is  the  tracing  of  some  mighty  waters 
up  to  their  shallow  fontlet,  than  it  is  to  a  pleased 
and  candid  reader  to  go  back  to  the  inexperienced 
essays,  the  first  callow  flights  in  authorship,  of 
some  established  name  in  literature ;  from  the 
gnat  which  preluded  to  the  ^neid,  to  the  duck 
which  Samuel  Johnson  trod  on. 

In  those  days  every  morning  paper,  as  an  essen- 
tial retainer  to  its  establishment,  kept  an  author, 
who  was  bound  to  furnish  daily  a  quantum  of 
witty  paragraphs.  Sixpence  a  joke — and  it  was 
thought  pretty  high  too — was  Dan  Stuart's  settled 


1Rew6paper5  ^bfrt^sjFive  l^ears  Bqo.     395 

remuneration  in  these  cases.  The  chat  of  the 
day,  scandal,  but,  above  all,  dress,  furnished  the 
material.  The  length  of  no  paragraph  was  to 
exceed  seven  lines.  Shorter  they  might  be,  but 
they  must  be  poignant. 

A  fashion  of  Jlesh,  or  rather  prnk-colored  hose 
for  the  ladies,  luckily  coming  up  at  the  juncture 
when  we  were  on  our  probation  for  the  place  of 
chief  jester  to  S 's  paper,  established  our  repu- 
tation in  that  line.  We  were  pronounced  a  "cap- 
ital hand."  Oh,  the  conceits  which  we  varied 
upon  red  in  all  its  prismatic  differences  !  from  the 
trite  and  obvious  flower  of  Cytherea,  to  the  flaming 
costume  of  the  lady  that  has  her  sitting  upon 
*' many  waters."  Then  there  was  the  collateral 
topic  of  ankles.  What  an  occasion  to  a  truly 
chaste  writer,  like  ourself,  of  touching  that  nice 
brink,  and  yet  never  tumbling  over  it,  of  a  seem- 
ingly ever  approximating  something  *'not  quite 
proper";  while,  like  a  skilful  posture-master, 
balancing  betwixt  decorums  and  their  opposites, 
he  keeps  the  line,  from  which  a  hairs-breadth 
deviation  is  destruction  ;  hovering  in  the  confines 
of  light  and  darkness,  or  where  "both  seem 
either";  a  hazy,  uncertain  delicacy;  Autolycus- 
like  in  the  play,  still  putting  off  his  expectant 
auditory  with  "Whoop,  do  me  no  harm,  good 
man  !  "  But,  above  all,  that  conceit  arrided  us 
most  at  that  time,  and  still  tickles  our  midriff  to 
remember,  where,  allusively  to  the  flight  of 
Astraea — ultima  Ccelestum  terras  rca'quit,  — we  pro- 
nounced— in  reference  to  the  stockings  still — that 
Modesty,  taking  her  final  leave  of  mortals,  her 
LAST  Blush  was  visible  in  her  ascent  to  the 
Heavens   by  the   tract   of  the   glowing   instep. 


396  IBBsn^s  of  BUa, 

This  might  be  called  the  crowning  conceit ;  and 
was  esteemed  tolerable  writing  in  those  days. 

But  the  fashion  of  jokes,  with  all  other  things, 
passes  away  ;  as  did  the  transient  mode  which 
had  so  favored  us.  The  ankles  of  our  fair  friends 
in  a  few  weeks  began  to  reassume  their  white- 
ness, and  left  us  scarce  a  leg  to  stand  upon. 
Other  female  whims  followed,  but  none  me- 
thought  so  pregnant,  so  invitatory  of  shrewd  con- 
ceits, and  more  than  single  meanings. 

Somebody  has  said,  that  to  swallow  six  cross- 
buns  daily,  consecutively  for  a  fortnight,  would 
surfeit  the  stoutest  digestion.  But  to  have  to  fur- 
nish as  many  jokes  daily,  and  that  not  for  a  fort- 
night, but  for  a  long  twelvemonth,  as  we  were 
constrained  to  do,  was  a  little  harder  exaction. 
**Man  goeth  forth  to  his  work  until  the  evening," 
— from  a  reasonable  hour  in  the  morning,  we  pre- 
sume it  was  meant  Now,  as  our  main  occupa- 
tion took  us  up  from  eight  till  five  every  day  in 
the  city  ;  and  as  our  evening  hours,  at  that  time 
of  life,  had  generally  to  do  with  any  thing  rather 
than  business,  it  follows  that  the  only  time  we 
could  spare  for  this  manufactory  of  jokes — our 
supplementary  livelihood,  that  supplied  us  in 
every  want  beyond  mere  bread  and  cheese — was 
exactly  that  part  of  the  day  which  (as  we  have 
heard  of  No  INIan's  Land)  may  be  fitly  denom- 
inated No  IMan's  Time  ;  that  is,  no  time  in  which 
a  man  ought  to  be  up,  and  awake,  in.  To  speak 
more  plainly,  it  is  that  time  of  an  hour,  or  an 
hour  and  a  half  s  duration,  in  which  a  man,  whose 
occasions  call  him  up  so  preposterously,  has  to 
wait  for  his  breakfast. 

O  those  headaches   at  dawn  of  day,  when  at 


Bewspapecs  Zbivt^^^ivc  l^cars  Bso«     397 

five  or  half-past  five  in  summer,  and  not  much 
later  in  the  dark  seasons,  we  were  compelled  to 
rise,  having  been  perhaps  not  above  four  hours 
in  bed  (for  we  were  no  go-to-beds  with  the  lamb, 
though  we  anticipated  the  lark  ofttimes  in  her 
rising, — we  like  a  parting  cup  at  midnight,  as  all 
young  men  did  before  these  effeminate  times,  and 
to  have  our  friends  about  us, — we  were  not  con- 
stellated under  Aquarius,  that  watery  sign,  and 
therefore  incapable  of  Bacchus,  cold,  washy, 
bloodless, — we  were  none  of  your  Basilian  water- 
sponges,  nor  had  taken  our  degrees  at  Mount 
Ague, — we  were  right  toping  Capulets,  jolly  com- 
panions, we  and  they), — but  to  have  to  get  up, 
as  we  said  before,  curtailed  of  half  our  fair  sleep, 
fasting,  with  only  a  dim  vista  of  refreshing  bohea 
in  the  distance, — to  be  necessitated  to  rouse  our- 
selves at  the  detestable  rap  of  an  old  hag  of  a 
domestic,  who  seemed  to  take  a  diabolical  pleas- 
ure in  her  announcement  that  it  was  "time  to 
rise  "  ;  and  whose  chappy  knuckles  we  have  often 
yearned  to  amputate,  and  string  them  up  at  our 
chamber-door,  to  be  a  terror  to  all  such  unseason- 
able rest-breakers  in  future 

**Facil"  and  sweet,  as  Virgil  sings,  had  been 
the  ''descending"  of  the  overnight,  balmy  the 
first  sinking  of  the  heavy  head  upon  the  pillow ; 
but  to  get  up,  as  he  goes  on  to  say, 

revocare  gradus,  superasque  evadere  ad  auras 

and  to  get  up  moreover  to  make  jokes  with  malice 
prepended, — there  was   the    "labor,"    there  the 
"work." 
No  Egyptian  taskmaster  ever  devised  a  slavery 


398  i£esH^6  of  ;eiia. 

like  to  that,  our  slavery.  No  fractious  operants 
ever  turned  out  for  half  the  tyranny  which  this 
necessity  exercised  upon  us.  Half  a  dozen  jests 
in  a  day  (bating  Sundays  too),  why,  it  seems 
nothing  !  We  make  twice  the  number  every  day 
in  our  lives  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  claim  no 
Sabbatical  exemptions.  But  then  they  come  into 
our  head.  But  when  the  head  has  to  go  out  to 
them — when  the  mountain  must  go  to  Mahomet, — 

Reader,  try  it  for  once,  only  for  one  short 
twelvemonth. 

It  was  not  every  week  that  a  fashion  of  pink 
stockings  came  up  ;  but  mostly,  instead  of  it, 
some  rugged,  untractable  subject ;  some  topic 
impossible  to  be  contorted  into  the  risible  ;  some 
feature,  upon  which  no  smile  could  play  ;  some 
flint,  from  which  no  process  of  ingenuity  could 
procure  a  scintillation.  There  they  lay ;  there 
your  appointed  tale  of  brick-making  was  set  before 
you,  which  you  must  finish,  with  or  without 
straw,  as  it  happened.  The  craving  Dragon, — 
/he  Public, — like  him  in  Bel's  temple, — must  be 
fed  ;  it  expected  its  daily  rations  ;  and  Daniel, 
and  ourselves,  to  do  us  justice,  did  the  best  we 
could  on  this  side  bursting  him. 

While  we  were  wringing  out  coy  sprightlinesses 
for  Tlie  Post,  and  writhing  under  the  toil  of  what 
is  called  "easy  writing,"  Bob  Allen,  our  quondavi 
schoolfellow,  was  tapping  his  impracticable  brains 
in  a  like  service  for  The  Oracle.  Not  that  Robert 
troubled  himself  much  about  wit.  If  his  para- 
graphs had  a  sprightly  air  about  them,  it  was 
sufficient.  He  carried  this  nonchalance  so  far  at 
last,  that  a  matter  of  intelligence,  and  that  no 
very  important  one,  was  not  seldom  palmed  upon 


•flewspapers  ^bicts*3five  l^ears  Bflo.     399 

his  employers  for  a  good  jest ;  for  example  sake, 
— '*  Walking  yesterday  7nornmg  casually  down  Snow 
Hill,  whom  should  we  meet  hut  Mr,  Dep^dy  Hum- 
phreys /  We  rejoice  to  add,  that  the  worthy  Deputy 
appeared  to  enjoy  a  good  state  of  health.  We  do 
not  ever  remember  to  have  seen  him  look  better" 
This  gentleman  so  surprisingly  met  upon  Snow 
Hill,  from  some  peculiarities  in  gait  or  gesture, 
was  a  constant  butt  for  mirth  to  the  small  para- 
graph-mongers of  the  day  ;  and  our  friend  thought 
that  he  might  have  his  fling  at  him  with  the  rest. 
We  met  A.  in  Holborn  shortly  after  this  extraor- 
dinary rencounter,  which  he  told  with  tears  of 
satisfaction  in  his  eyes,  and  chuckling  at  the  antic- 
ipated effects  of  its  announcement  next  day  in  the 
paper.  We  did  not  quite  comprehend  where  the 
wit  of  it  lay  at  the  time  ;  nor  was  it  easy  to  be 
detected,  when  the  thing  came  out  advantaged 
by  type  and  letter-press.  He  had  better  have 
met  any  thing  that  morning  than  a  Common 
Councilman.  His  services  were  shortly  after  dis- 
pensed with,  on  the  plea  that  his  paragraphs  of 
late  had  been  deficient  in  point.  The  one  in 
question,  it  must  be  owned,  had  an  air,  in  the 
opening  especially,  proper  to  awaken  curiosity ; 
and  the  sentiment,  or  moral,  wears  the  aspect 
of  humanity  and  good  neighborly  feeling.  But 
somehow  the  conclusion  was  not  judged  alto- 
gether to  answer  to  the  magnificent  promise  of 
the  premises.  We  traced  our  friend's  pen  after- 
wards in  The  True  Britofi,  The  Star,  The  Traveller^ 
— from  all  which  he  was  successively  dismissed, 
the  proprietors  having  "no  further  occasion  for 
his  services."  Nothing  was  easier  than  to  detect 
him.     When  wit  failed,  or  topics  ran  low,  there 


400  IE00ai55  of  Blfa. 

constantly  appeared  the  following-  : — "//  is  not 
generally  know7i  that  the  three  Blue  Balls  at  the 
Pawnbrokers  shops  are  the  ancient  arms  of  Lom- 
hardy.  The  Lombards  were  the  first  money -brokers 
in  Europe."  Bob  has  done  more  to  set  the  public 
right  on  this  important  point  of  blazonry,  than  the 
whole  College  of  Heralds. 

The  appointment  of  a  regular  wit  has  long 
ceased  to  be  a  part  of  the  economy  of  a  morning 
paper.  Editors  find  their  own  jokes,  or  do  as 
well  without  them.  Parson  Este,  and  Topham, 
brought  up  the  set  custom  of  **  witty  paragraphs" 
first  in  The  World.  Boaden  was  a  reigning  para- 
graphist  in  his  day,  and  succeeded  poor  Allen  in 
Tlie  Oracle.  But,  as  we  said,  the  fashion  of  jokes 
passes  away  ;  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  discover 
in  the  biographer  of  Mrs.  Siddons  any  traces  of 
that  vivacity  and  fancy  which  charmed  the  whole 
town  at  the  commencement  of  the  present  century. 
Even  the  prelusive  delicacies  of  the  present  writer, 
— the  curt  "  Astraean  allusion  '"' — would  be  thought 
pedantic  and  out  of  date  in  these  days. 

From  the  office  of  The  Morning  Post  (for  we 
may  as  well  exhaust  our  newspaper  reminiscences 
at  once),  by  change  of  property  in  the  paper,  we 
were  transferred,  mortifying  exchange  !  to  the 
office  of  Tlie  Albion  newspaper,  late  Rackstrow's 
Museum,  in  Fleet  Street.  What  a  transition, — 
from  a  handsome  apartment,  from  rosewood 
desks  and  silver  inkstands,  to  an  office, — no  office, 
but  a  den  rather,  but  just  redeemed  from  the  occu- 
pation of  dead  monsters,  of  which  it  seemed  red- 
olent,— from  the  centre  of  lo/alty  and  fashion, 
to  a  focus  of  vulgarity  and  sedition !  Here,  in 
murky  closet,  inadequate  from  its  square   con- 


Uaewspapers  ^blrtig-yive  l^ears  Bao,      401 

tents  to  the  receipt  of  the  two  bodies  of  editor 
and  humble  paragraph-maker,  together  at  one 
time,  sat,  in  the  discharge  of  his  new  editorial 
functions,  (the  *'Bigod"  of  Elia,)  the  redoubted 
John  Fen  wick. 

F.,  without  a  guinea  in  his  pocket,  and  having 
left  not  many  in  the  pockets  of  his  friends  whom 
he  might  command,  had  purchased  (on  tick  doubt- 
less) the  whole  and  sole  editorship,  proprietorship, 
with  all  the  rights  and  titles  (such  as  they  were 
worth)  of  The  Albion  from  one  Lovell ;  of  whom 
we  know  nothing,  save  that  he  had  stood  in  the 
pillory  for  a  libel  on  the  Prince  of  Wales.  With 
this  hopeless  concern — for  it  had  been  sinking 
ever  since  its  commencement,  and  could  now 
reckon  upon  not  more  than  a  hundred  subscribers 
— F.  resolutely  determined  upon  pulling  down 
the  government  in  the  first  instance,  and  making 
both  our  fortunes  by  way  of  corollary.  For  seven 
weeks  and  more  did  this  infatuated  democrat  go 
about  borrowing  seven-shilling  pieces,  and  lesser 
coin,  to  meet  the  daily  demands  of  the  Stamp- 
Ofiice,  which  allowed  no  credit  to  publications  of 
that  side  in  politics.  An  outcast  from  politer 
bread,  we  attached  our  small  talents  to  the  for- 
lorn fortunes  of  our  friend.  Our  occupation  now 
was  to  write  treason. 

Recollections  of  feelings, — which  were  all  that 
now  remained  from  our  first  boyish  heats  kindled 
by  the  French  Revolution,  when,  if  we  were 
misled,  we  erred  in  the  company  of  some  who 
are  accounted  very  good  men  now, — rather  than 
any  tendency  at  this  time  to  Republican  doctrines, 
— assisted  us  in  assuming  a  style  of  writing, 
v^hile  the  paper  lasted,  consonant  in  no  very 
26 


402  E50ai?5  of  JBUn, 

under-tone, — to  the  right  earnest  fanaticism  of 
F.  Our  cue  was  now  to  insinuate,  rather  than 
recommend,  possible  abdications.  Blocks,  axes, 
Whitehall  tribunals,  were  covered  with  flowers 
of  so  cunning  a  periphrasis — as  Mr.  Bayes  says, 
never  naming  the  //iing  directly — that  the  keen 
eye  of  an  Attorney-General  was  insufficient  to 
detect  the  lurking  snake  among  them.  There 
were  times,  indeed,  when  we  sighed  for  our  more 
gentlemanlike  occupation  under  Stuart.  But  with 
change  of  masters  it  is  ever  change  of  service. 
Already  one  paragraph,  and  another,  as  we 
learned  afterwards  from  a  gentleman  at  the  Treas- 
ury, had  begun  to  be  marked  at  that  office,  with 
a  view  of  its  being  submitted  at  least  to  the  at- 
tention of  the  proper  Law  Officers, — when  an 
unlucky,  or  rather  lucky  epigram  from  our  pen, 

aimed  at  Sir  J s  M h,  who  was  on  the  eve 

of  departing  for  India  to  reap  the  fruits  of  his 
apostasy,  as  F.  pronounced  it  (it  is  hardly  worth 
particularizing),  happening  to  offend  the  nice 
sense  of  Lord,  or  as  he  then  delighted  to  be 
called,  Citizen  Stanhope,  deprived  F.  at  once  of 
the  last  hopes  of  a  guinea  from  the  last  patron 
that  had  stuck  by  us  ;  and  breaking  up  our  estab- 
lishment, left  us  to  the  safe,  but  somewhat  mor- 
tifying, neglect  of  the  Crown  Lawyers.  It  was 
about  this  time,  or  a  little  earlier,  that  Dan  Stuart 
made  that  curious  confession  to  us,  that  he  had 
'*  never  deliberately  wallced  into  an  Exhibition  at 
Somerset  House  in  his  life." 


BARRENNESS  OF  THE  IMAGINATIVE  FAC- 
ULTY  IN   THE   PRODUCTIONS   OF 
MODERN  ART. 


Hogarth  excepted,  can  we  produce  any  one 
painter  within  the  last  fifty  years,  or  since  the 
humor  of  exhibiting  began,  that  has  treated  a 
story  imaginatively  ?  By  this  we  mean,  upon 
whom  his  subject  has  so  acted,  that  it  has  seemed 
to  direct  him — not  to  be  arranged  by  him  ?  Any 
upon  whom  its  leading  or  collateral  points  have 
impressed  themselves  so  tyrannically,  that  he 
dared  not  treat  it  otherwise,  lest  he  should  falsify 
a  revelation  ?  Any  that  has  imparted  to  his  com- 
positions, not  merely  so  much  truth  as  is  enough 
to  convey  a  story  with  clearness,  but  that  in- 
dividualizing property,  which  should  keep  the 
subject  so  treated  distinct  in  feature  from  every 
other  subject,  however  similar,  and  to  common 
apprehensions  almost  identical ;  so  as  that  we 
might  say,  this  and  this  part  could  have  found 
an  appropriate  place  in  no  other  picture  in  the 
world  but  this  ?  Is  there  any  thing  in  modern 
art — we  will  not  demand  that  it  should  be  equal 
— but  in  any  way  analogous  to  what  Titian  has 
effected,  in  that  wonderful  bringing  together  of 
two  times  in  the  ''Ariadne,"  in  the  National 
Gallery  ?     Precipitous,  with  his  reeling  satyr  rout 

403 


404  Eesai^s  of  JEli^, 

about  him,  re-peopling  and  re-illumining  sud- 
denly the  waste  places,  drunk  with  a  new  fury 
beyond  the  grape,  Bacchus,  born  in  fire,  fire- 
like flings  himself  at  the  Cretan.  This  is  the 
time  present.  With  this  telling  of  the  story — an 
artist,  and  no  ordinary  one,  might  remani  richly 
proud.  Guido,  in  his  harmonious  version  of  it, 
saw  no  further.  But  from  the  depths  of  the 
imaginative  spirit  Titian  has  recalled  past  time, 
and  laid  it  contributory  with  the  present  to  one 
simultaneous  effect.  With  the  desert  all  ringing 
with  the  mad  cymbals  of  his  followers,  made 
lucid  with  the  presence  and  new  offers  of  a  god, — 
as  if  unconscious  of  Bacchus,  or  but  idly  casting 
her  eyes  as  upon  some  unconcerning  pageant, — 
her  soul  undistracted  from  Theseus, — Ariadne  is 
still  pacing  the  solitary  shore  in  as  much  heart 
silence,  and  in  almost  the  same  local  solitude, 
with  which  she  awoke  at  daybreak  to  catch  the 
forlorn  last  glances  of  the  sail  that  bore  away 
the  Athenian. 

Here  are  two  points  miraculously  co-uniting; 
fierce  society,  with  the  feeling  of  solitude  still 
absolute ;  noonday  revelations,  with  the  acci- 
dents of  the  dull  gray  dawn  unquenched  and 
lingering;  the  present  Bacchus,  with  the  past 
Ariadne;  two  stories,  with  double  Time;  sepa- 
rate and  harmonizing.  Had  the  artist  made  the 
woman  one  shade  less  indifferent  to  the  god  ; 
still  more,  had  she  expressed  a  rapture  at  his 
advent,  where  would  have  been  the  story  of  the 
mighty  desolation  of  the  heart  previous.?  merged 
in  the  insipid  accident  of  a  flattering  offer  met  with 
a  welcome  acceptance.  The  broken  heart  for 
Theseus  was  not  lightly  to  be  pieced  up  by  a  god. 


©n  tbe  productions  of  /iRoDern  Bet.      405 

■■  We  have  before  us  a  line  rough  print,  from 
a  picture  by  Raphael  in  the  Vatican.  It  is  the 
Presentation  of  the  new-born  Eve  to  Adam  by  the 
Almighty.  A  fairer  mother  of  mankind  we  might 
imagine,  and  a  goodlier  sire  perhaps  of  men  since 
born.  But  these  are  matters  subordinate  to  the 
conception  of  the  situation^  displayed  in  this  ex- 
traordinary production.  A  tolerably  modern  artist 
would  have  been  satisfied  with  tempering  certain 
raptures  of  connubial  anticipation,  with  a  suitable 
acknowledgment  to  the  Giver  of  the  blessing,  in 
the  countenance  of  the  first  bridegroom,  some- 
thing like  the  divided  attention  of  the  child  (Adam 
was  here  a  child-man)  between  the  given  toy  and 
the  mother  who  had  just  blessed  it  with  the  bauble. 
This  is  the  obvious,  the  first-sight  view,  the  super- 
ficial. An  artist  of  a  higher  grade,  considering 
the  awful  presence  they  were  in,  would  have 
taken  care  to  subtract  something  from  the  expres- 
sion of  the  more  human  passion,  and  to  heighten 
the  more  spiritual  one.  This  would  be  as  much 
as  an  exhibition-goer,  from  the  opening  of  Somer- 
set House  to  last  year's  show,  has  been  en- 
couraged to  look  for.  It  is  obvious  to  hint  at  a 
lower  expression  yet,  in  a  picture  that,  for  respects 
of  drawing  and  coloring,  might  be  deemed  not 
wholly  inadmissible  within  these  art-fostering 
walls  in  which  the  raptures  should  be  as  ninety- 
nine,  the  gratitude  as  one,  or  perhaps  zero  !  By 
neither  the  one  passion  nor  the  other  has  Raphael 
expounded  the  situation  of  Adam.  Singly  upon 
his  brow  sits  the  absorbing  sense  of  wonder  at  the 
created  miracle.  The  moment  is  seized  by  the 
mtuitive  artist,  perhaps  not  self-conscious  of  his 
art,  in  which  neither  of  the  conflicting  emotions 


4o6  Bssass  of  jeifa. 

■ — a  moment  how  abstracted  ! — has  had  time  to 
spring  up,  or  to  battle  for  indecqrous  mastery. 
We  have  seen  a  landscape  of  a  justly  admired 
neoteric,  in  which  he  aimed  at  delineating  a  fiction, 
one  of  the  most  severely  beautiful  in  antiquity — 

the  gardens  of  the  Hesperides.     To  do  j\Ir.  • 

justice,  he  had  painted  a  laudable  orchard,  with 
fitting  seclusion,  and  a  veritable  dragon  (of  which 
a  Polypheme  by  Poussin  is  somehow  ^fac  simile 
for  the  situation),  looking  over  into  the  world  shut 
out  backward,  so  that  none  but  a  ''still-climbing 
Hercules "  could  hope  to  catch  a  peep  at  the 
admired  Ternary  of  Recluses.  No  conventual 
porter  could  keep  his  eyes  better  than  this  custos 
with  the  "  lidless  eyes."  He  not  only  sees  that 
none  do  intrude  into  that  privacy,  but,  as  clear  as 
daylight,  that  none  but  Hercules  aui  Diaholus  by 
any  manner  of  means  can.  So  far  all  is  well.  We 
have  absolute  solitude  here  or  nowhere.  Ah  extra 
the  damsels  are  snug  enough.  But  here  the  artist  s 
courage  seems  to  have  failed  him.  He  began  to 
pity  his  pretty  charge,  and,  to  comfort  the  irk- 
someness,  has  peopled  their  solitude  with  a  bevy 
of  fair  attendants,  maids  of  honor,  or  ladies  of  the 
bedchamber,  according  to  the  approved  etiquette 
at  a  court  of  the  nineteenth  century  ;  giving  to 
the  whole  scene  the  air  of  7s./cie  champefre,  if  we 
will  but  excuse  the  absence  of  the  gentlemen. 
This  is  well,  and  Watteauish.  But  what  is  become 
of  the  solitary  mystery, — the 

Daughters  three, 
That  sing  around  the  golden  tree  ? 

This  is  not  the  way  in  which  Poussin  would  have 
treated  the  subject. 


©n  the  f>roOuctfons  of  /Iftodern  Brt,      407 

The  paintings,  or  rather  the  stupendous  archi- 
tectural designs,  of  a  modern  artist,  have  been 
urged  as  objections  to  the  theory  of  our  motto. 
They  are  of  a  character,  we  confess,  to  stagger  it. 
His  towered  structures  are  of  the  highest  order  of 
the  material  sublime.  Whether  they  were  dreams, 
or  transcripts  of  some  elder  workmanship, — As- 
syrian ruins  old, — restored  by  this  mighty  artist, 
they  satisfy  our  most  stretched  and  craving  con- 
ceptions of  the  glories  of  the  antique  world.  It  is 
a  pity  that  they  were  ever  peopled.  On  that  side, 
the  imagination  of  the  artist  halts,  and  appears 
defective.  Let  us  examine  the  point  of  the  story 
in  the  ''Belshazzar's  Feast."  We  will  introduce 
it  by  an  apposite  anecdote. 

The  court  historians  of  the  day  record,  that  at 
the  first  dinner  given  by  the  late  King  (then  Prince 
Regent)  at  the  Pavilion,  the  following  character- 
istic frolic  was  played  off.  The  guests  were  select 
and  admiring ;  the  banquet  profuse  and  admirable  ; 
the  lights  lustrous  and  oriental  ;  the  eye  was 
perfectly  dazzled  with  the  display  of  plate,  among 
which  the  great  gold  saltcellar,  brought  from  the 
regalia  in  the  Tower  for  this  especial  purpose,  itself 
a  tower !    stood   conspicuous  for  its    magnitude. 

And  now  the  Rev.  ,  the  then  admired  court 

chaplain,  was  proceeding  with  the  grace,  when, 
at  a  signal  given,  the  lights  were  suddenly  over- 
cast, and  a  huge  transparency  was  discovered  in 
which  glittered  in  gold  letters — 

"Brighton — Earthquake — Swallow-up-alive  !  " 

Imagine  the  confusion  of  the  guests  ;  the  Georges 
and  garters,  jewels,  bracelets,  moulted  upon  the 
occasion  !     The  fans  dropped,  and  picked  up  the 


4o8  16063^5  ot  BUa. 

next  morning  by  the  sly  court  pages !  Mrs. 
Fitz-what's-her-name  faintinof  and  the  Countess 
of holding  the  smelling-bottle,  till  the  good- 
humored  Prince  caused  harmony  to  be  restored, 
by  calling  in  fresh  candles,  and  declaring  that  the 
whole  was  nothing  but  a  pantomime  hoax,  got 
up  by  the  ingenious  Mr.  Farley,  of  Covent  Garden, 
from  hints  which  his  Royal  Highness  himself  had 
furnished  !  Then  imagine  the  infinite  applause 
that  followed,  the  mutual  rallyings,  the  declara- 
tions that  ** they  were  not  much  frightened,"  of 
the  assembled  galaxy. 

The  point  of  time  in  the  picture  exactly  answers 
to  the  appearance  of  the  transparency  in  the  anec- 
dote. The  huddle,  the  flutter,  the  bustle,  the 
escape,  the  alarm,  and  the  mock  alarm  ;  the  pret- 
tinesses  heightened  by  consternation  ;  the  cour- 
tier's fear,  which  was  flattery  ;  and  the  lady's, 
which  was  affectation  ;  all  that  we  may  conceive 
to  have  taken  place  in  a  mob  of  Brighton  cour- 
tiers, sympathizing  with  the  well-acted  surprise 
of  their  sovereign  ;  all  this,  and  no  more,  is 
exhibited  by  the  well-dressed  lords  and  ladies  in 
the  hall  of  Belus.  Just  this  sort  of  consternation 
we  have  seen  among  a  flock  of  disquieted  wild 
geese  at  the  report  only  of  a  gun  having  gone 
off! 

But  is  this  vulgar  fright,  this  mere  animal 
anxiety  for  the  preservation  of  this  persons, — 
such  as  we  have  witnessed  at  a  theatre,  when  a 
slight  alarm  of  fire  has  been  given, — an  adequate 
exponement  of  a  supernatural  terror.?  the  way  in 
which  the  finger  of  God,  writing  judgments, 
would  have  been  met  by  the  withered  conscience  ? 
There  is  a  human  fear,  and  a  divine  fear.     The 


On  tbe  proDuctfons  of  /IRoDern  Hrt.      409 

one  is  disturbed,  restless,  and  bent  upon  escape. 
The  other  is  bowed  down,  effortless,  passive. 
When  the  spirit  appeared  before  Eliphaz  in  the 
visions  of  the  night,  and  the  hair  of  his  flesh  stood 
up,  was  it  in  the  thoughts  of  the  Temanite  to  ring 
the  bell  of  his  chamber,  or  to  call  up  the  servants? 
But  let  us  see  in  the  text  what  there  is  to  justify 
all  this  huddle  of  vulgar  consternation. 

From  the  words  of  Daniel  it  appears  that  Bel- 
shazzar  had  made  a  great  feast  to  a  thousand  of 
his  lords,  and  drank  wine  before  the  thousand. 
The  golden  and  silver  vessels  are  gorgeously  enu- 
merated, with  the  princes,  the  king's  concubines, 
and  his  wives.     Then  follows, — 

"In  the  same  hour  came  forth  fingers  of  a  man  s 
hand,  and  wrote  over  against  the  candlestick 
upon  the  plaster  of  the  wall  of  the  king's  palace 
and  the  king  saw  the  part  of  the  hand  that  wrote. 
Then  the  king's  countenance  was  changed,  and 
his  thoughts  troubled  him,  so  that  the  joints  of 
his  loins  were  loosened,  and  his  knees  smote  one 
against  another." 

This  is  the  plain  text.  By  no  hint  can  it  be 
otherwise  inferred,  but  that  the  appearance  was 
solely  confined  to  the  fancy  of  Belshazzar,  that  his 
single  brain  was  troubled.  Not  a  word  is  spoken 
of  its  being  seen  by  any  else  there  present,  not 
even  by  the  queen  herself,  who  merely  undertakes 
for  the  interpretation  of  the  phenomenon,  as  re- 
lated to  her,  doubtless,  by  her  husband.  The 
lords  are  simply  said  to  be  astonished;  i.  e.,  at 
the  trouble  and  the  change  of  countenance  in 
their  sovereign.  Even  the  prophet  does  not  ap- 
pear to  have  seen  the  scroll,  which  the  King  saw. 
He  recalls  it  only,  as  Joseph  did  the  dream  to  the 


41  o  iSse^^s  of  ;6I(a. 

King  of  Egypt.  **Then  was  the  part  of  the  hand 
sent  from  him  [the  Lord],  and  this  writing  was 
written."     He  speaks  of  the  phantasm  as  past. 

Then  what  becomes  of  this  needless  multipli- 
cation of  the  miracle.?  this  message  to  a  royal 
conscience,  singly  expressed, — for  it  was  said, 
"Thy  kingdom  is  divided," — simultaneously  im- 
pressed upon  the  fancies  of  a  thousand  courtiers, 
who  were  implied  in  it  neither  directly  nor  gram- 
matically ? 

But  admitting  the  artist's  own  version  of  the 
story,  and  that  the  sight  was  seen  also  by  the 
thousand  courtiers, — let  it  have  been  visible  to  all 
Babylon, — as  the  knees  of  Belshazzar  were  shaken, 
and  his  countenance  troubled,  even  so  would  the 
knees  of  every  man  in  Babylon,  and  their  coun- 
tenances, as  of  an  individual  man,  have  been 
troubled  ;  bowed,  bent  down,  so  would  they  have 
remained,  stupor-fixed,  with  no  thought  of  strug- 
gling with  that  inevitable  judgment. 

Not  all  that  is  optically  possible  to  be  seen,  is 
to  be  shown  in  every  picture.  The  eye  delight- 
edly dwells  upon  the  brilliant  individualities  in  a 
''Marriage  at  Cana,"  by  Veronese,  or  Titian,  to 
the  very  texture  and  color  of  the  wedding-gar- 
ments, the  ring  glittering  upon  the  bride's  finger, 
the  metal  and  fashion  of  the  wine-pots  ;  for  at 
such  seasons  there  is  leisure  and  luxury  to  be 
curious.  But  in  a  "day  of  judgment,"  or  in  a 
"day  of  lesser  horrors,  yet  divine,"  as  at  the  im- 
pious feast  of  Belshazzar,  the  eye  should  see,  as 
the  actual  eye  of  an  agent  or  patient  in  the  imme- 
diate scene  would  see,  only  in  masses  and  indis- 
tinction.  Not  only  the  female  attire  and  jewelry 
exposed  to  the  critical  eye  of  fashion,  as  minutely 


©n  tbe  lPro&uctlon6  of  /iBoOern  Bet.      411 

as  the  dresses  in  a  Ladys  Magazine,  in  the  criti- 
cised picture, — but  perhaps  the  curiosities  of  ana- 
tomical science,  and  studied  diversities  of  posture, 
in  the  falling  angels  and  sinners  of  Michael  Angelo, 
— have  no  business  in  their  great  subjects.  There 
was  no  leisure  for  them. 

By  a  wise  falsification,  the  great  masters  of 
painting  got  at  their  true  conclusions  ;  by  not 
showing  the  actual  appearances,  that  is,  all  that 
was  to  be  seen  at  any  given  moment  by  an  in- 
different eye,  but  only  what  the  eye  might  be 
supposed  to  see  in  the  doing  or  suffering  of  some 
portentous  action.  Suppose  the  moment  of  the 
swallowing  up  of  Pompeii.  There  they  were  to 
be  seen, — houses,  columns,  architectural  propor- 
tions, differences  of  public  and  private  buildings, 
men  and  women  at  their  standing  occupations, 
the  diversified  thousand  postures,  attitudes, 
dresses  in  some  confusion  truly,  but  physically 
they  were  visible.  But  what  eye  saw  them  at 
that  eclipsing  moment,  which  reduces  confusion 
to  a  kind  of  unity,  and  when  the  senses  are  up- 
turned from  their  properties,  when  sight  and  hear- 
ing are  a  feeling  only  .^  A  thousand  years  have 
passed,  and  we  are  at  leisure  to  contemplate  the 
weaver  fixed  standmg  at  his  shuttle,  the  baker  at 
his  oven,  and  to  turn  over  with  antiquarian  cool- 
ness the  pots  and  pans  of  Pompeii. 

"Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon  Gibeon,  and  thou. 
Moon,  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon."  Who,  in  reading 
this  magnificent  Hebraism,  in  his  conception,  sees 
aught  but  the  heroic  son  of  Nun,  with  the  out- 
stretched arm,  and  the  greater  and  lesser  light 
obsequious  ?  Doubtless  there  were  to  be  seen  hill 
and  dale,   and  chariots   and  horsemen   on   open 


412  ]i^ssa^0  of  Blta. 

plain,  or  winding  by  secret  defiles,  and  all  the 
circumstances  and  stratagems  of  war.  But  whose 
eyes  would  have  been  conscious  of  this  array  at 
the  interposition  of  this  synchronic  miracle  ?  Yet 
in  the  picture  of  this  subject  by  the  artist  of  the 
Belshazzar's  Feast — no  ignoble  work  either — the 
marshalling  and  landscape  of  the  war  is  everything, 
the  miracle  sinks  into  an  anecdote  of  the  day  ;  and 
the  eye  may  "  dart  through  rank  and  file  traverse  " 
for  some  minutes,  before  it  shall  discover  among 
his  armed  followers  which  is  Joshua  !  Not  modern 
art  alone,  but  ancient,  where  only  it  is  to  be  found 
if  anywhere,  can  be  detected  erring,  from  defect  of 
this  imaginative  faculty.  The  world  has  nothing 
to  show  of  the  preternatural  painting,  transcending 
the  figure  of  Lazarus  bursting  his  grave-clothes,  in 
the  great  picture  at  Angerntein's.  Itseems  athing 
between  two  beings.  A  ghastly  horror  at  itself 
struggles  with  newly  apprehended  gratitude  at 
second  life  bestowed.  It  cannot  forget  that  it  was 
a  ghost.  It  has  hardly  felt  that  it  is  a  body.  It 
has  to  tell  of  the  world  of  spirits.  Was  rt  from  a 
feeling  that  the  crowd  of  half-impassioned  by- 
standers, and  the  still  more  irrelevant  herd  of 
passers-by  at  a  distance,  who  have  not  heard,  or 
but  faintly  have  been  told,  of  the  passing  miracle, 
admirable  as  they  are  in  design  and  hue — for  it  is 
a  glorified  work — do  not  respond  adequately  to 
the  action — that  the  single  figure  of  the  Lazarus 
has  been  attributed  to  Michael  Angelo,  and  the 
mighty  Sebastian  unfairly  robbed  of  the  fame  of 
the  greater  half  of  the  interest !  Now  that  there 
were  not  indifferent  passers-by  within  actual  scope 
of  the  eyes  of  those  present  at  the  miracle,  to 
whom  the  sound  of  it  had  but  faintly,  or  not  at 


On  tbe  pcoDuctions  ot  /BboDern  Brt,       413 

all,  reached,  it  would  be  hardihood  to  deny  ;  but 
would  they  see  tbem?  or  can  the  mind  in  the 
conception  of  it  admit  of  such  unconcerning 
objects;  can  it  think  of  them  at  all?  or  what 
associating  league  to  the  imagination  can  there 
be  between  the  seers  and  the  seers  not  of  a  pre- 
sential  miracle. 

Were  an  artist  to  paint  upon  demand  a  picture 
of  a  Dryad,  we  will  ask  whether,  in  the  present 
low  state  of  expectation,  the  patron  would  not,  or 
ought  not  to  be  fully  satisfied  with  a  beautiful 
naked  figure  recumbent  under  wide-stretched 
oaks  ?  Disseat  those  woods,  and  place  the  same 
figure  among  fountains,  and  fall  of  pellucid  water, 
and  you  have  a — Naiad  !  Not  so  in  a  rough  print 
we  have  seen  after  Julio  Romano,  we  think,  for  it 
is  long  since.  There,  by  no  process,  with  mere 
change  of  scene,  could  the  figure  have  recipro- 
cated characters.  Long,  grotesque,  fantastic,  yet 
with  a  grace  of  her  own,  beautiful  in  convolution 
and  distortion,  linked  to  her  connatural  tree,  co- 
twisting  with  its  limbs  her  own,  till  both  seemed 
either — these,  animated  branches  ;  these,  disani- 
mated  members — yet  the  animal  and  vegetable 
lives  kept  distinct, — his  Dryad  lay,  an  approxima- 
tion of  two  natures,  which  to  conceive  it  must  be 
seen  ;  analogous  to,  not  the  same  with,  the  deli- 
cacies of  Ovidian  transformations. 

To  the  lowest  subjects,  and,  to  a  superficial 
comprehension,  the  most  barren,  the  great 
masters  give  loftiness  and  fruitfulness.  The  large 
eye  of  genius  saw  in  the  meanness  of  present 
objects  their  capabilities  of  treatment  from  their 
relations  to  some  grand  Past  or  Future.  How  has 
Raphael — we  must  still  linger  about  the  Vatican 


414  Essays  of  Blia. 

— treated  the  humble  craft  of  the  ship-builder  in 
his  Building  of  the  Ark  ?  It  is  in  that  scriptural 
series,  to  which  we  have  referred,  and  which, 
judging  from  some  fine  rough  old  graphic  sketches 
of  them  which  we  possess,  seem  to  be  of  a  higher 
and  more  poetic  grade  than  even  the  cartoons. 
The  dim  of  sight  are  the  timid  and  the  shrinking. 
There  is  a  cowardice  in  modern  art.  As  the 
Frenchman,  of  whom  Coleridge's  friend  made  the 
prophetic  guess  at  Rome,  from  the  beard  and  horns 
of  the  jMoses  of  Michael  Angelo,  collected  no  in- 
ferences beyond  that  of  a  He  Goat  and  a  Comuto  ; 
so  from  this  subject,  of  mere  mechanic  promise, 
it  would  instinctively  turn  away,  as  from  one 
incapable  of. investiture  with  any  grandeur.  The 
dock-yards  at  Woolwich  would  object  derogatory 
associations.  The  depot  at  Chatham  would  be  the 
mote  and  the  beam  in  an  intellectual  eye.  But 
not  to  the  nautical  preparations  in  the  ship-yards 
of  Civita  Vecchia  did  Raphael  look  for  instructions, 
when  he  imagined  the  Building  of  the  Vessel  that 
was  to  be  conservatory  of  the  wrecks  of  the  species 
of  drowned  mankind.  In  the  intensity  of  the 
action,  he  keeps  ever  out  of  sight  the  meanness  of 
the  operation.  There  is  the  Patriarch,  in  calm 
forethought,  and  with  holy  prescience,  giving 
directions.  And  there  are  his  agents — the  solitary 
but  sufficient  Three — hewing,  sawing,  every  one 
with  the  might  and  earnestness  of  a  Demiurgus  ; 
under  some  instinctive  rather  than  technical  guid- 
ance !  giant-muscled  ;  every  one  a  Hercules,  or 
liker  to  those  Vulcanian  Three,  that  in  sounding 
caverns  under  INIongibello  wrought  in  fire, — 
Brontes,  and  black  Steropes,  and  Pyracmon.  So 
work  the  workmen  that  should  repair  a  world  1 


On  tbe  prc^uct(on0  of  fl^oC^ern  Brt.      415 

Artists  again  err  in  the  confounding  oi poetic 
with  pictorial  subjects.  In  the  latter,  the  exterior 
accidents  are  nearly  every  thing,  the  unseen 
qualities  as  nothing.  Othello's  color, — the  infirm- 
ities and  corpulence  of  a  Sir  John  Falstaff, — do 
they  haunt  us  perpetually  in  the  reading  ?  or  are 
they  obtruded  upon  our  conceptions  one  time  for 
ninety-nine  that  we  are  lost  in  admiration  at  the 
respective  moral  or  intellectual  attributes  of  the 
character  ?  But  in  a  picture  Othello  is  always  a 
Blackamoor  ;  and  the  other  only  Plump  Jack. 
Deeply  corporealized,  and  enchained  hopelessly 
in  the  grovelling  fetters  of  externality,  must  be 
the  mind,  to  which,  in  its  better  moments,  the 
image  of  thehigh-souled,  high-intelligenced  Quix- 
ote— the  errant  Star  of  Knighthood,  made  more 
tender  by  eclipse — has  never  presented  itself, 
divested  from  the  unhallowed  accompaniment  of 
a  Sancho,  or  a  rabblement  at  the  heels  of  Rosi- 
nante.  That  man  has  read  his  book  by  halves  ; 
he  has  laughed,  mistaking  his  author's  purport, 
which  was — tears.  The  artist  that  pictures  Quix- 
ote (and  it  is  in  this  degrading  point  that  he  is 
every  season  held  up  at  our  Exhibitions)  in  the 
shallow  hope  of  exciting  mirth,  wouldhave  joined 
the  rabble  at  the  heels  of  his  starved  steed.  We 
wish  not  to  see  that  counterfeited,  which  we 
would  not  have  wished  to  see  in  the  reality. 
Conscious  of  the  heroic  inside  of  the  noble  Quix- 
ote, who,  on  hearing  that  his  withered  person 
was  passing,  would  have  stepped  over  his  thresh- 
old to  gaze  upon  his  forlorn  habiliments,  and 
the  "strange  bedfellows  which  misery  brings  a 
man  acquainted  with".'  Shade  of  Cervantes! 
who  in  thy  Second  Part  could  put  into  the  mouth 


4i6  lesB^^s  ot  JElla. 

of  thy  Quixote  those  high  aspirations  of  a  super- 
chivalrous  gallantry,  where  he  replies  to  one  of 
the  shepherdesses,  apprehensive  that  he  would 
spoil  their  pretty  networks,  and,  inviting  him  to 
be  a  guest  with  them,  in  accents  like  these  : 
"Truly,  fairest  Lady,  Actaeon  was  not  more 
astonished  when  he  saw  Diana  bathing  herself  at 
the  fountain,  than  I  have  been  in  beholding  your 
beauty.  1  commend  the  manner  of  your  pastime, 
and  thank  you  for  your  kind  offers  ;  and,  if  I  may 
serve  you,  so  I  may  be  sure  you  will  be  obeyed, 
you  may  command  me  ;  for  my  profession  is  this, 
to  show  myself  thankful,  and  a  doer  of  good  to 
all  sorts  of  people,  especially  of  the  rank  that 
your  person  shows  you  to  be ;  and  if  those  nets, 
as  they  take  up  but  a  little  piece  of  ground, 
should  take  up  the  whole  world,  I  would  seek  out 
new  worlds  to  pass  through,  rather  than  break 
them  ;  and  (he  adds)  that  you  may  give  credit  to 
this  my  exaggeration,  behold  at  least  he  that 
promiseth  you  this,  is  Don  Quixote  de  la  Mancha, 
if  haply  this  name  hath  come  to  your  hearing." 
Illustrious  Romancer!  were  the  "fine  frenzies" 
which  possessed  the  brain  of  thy  own  Quixote, 
a  fit  subject,  as  in  this  Second  Part,  to  be  exposed 
to  the  duennas  and  serving-men  ?  to  be  mon- 
stered  and  shown  up  at  the  heartless  banquets  of 
great  men  ?  Was  that  pitiable  infirmity,  which  in 
thy  First  Part  misleads  him,  a/ways  from  wiihin, 
into  half-ludicrous,  but  more  than  half-compas- 
sionable  and  admirable  errors,  not  infliction  i 
enough  from  heaven,  that  men  by  studied  artifices 
must  devise  and  practise  upon  the  humor,  to 
inflame  where  they  should  soothe  W.  Why, 
Goneril  would  have  blushed  to  practise  upon  the 


®n  tbe  proDuctions  ot  ifflioDem  Brt»      417 

abdicated  king  at  this  rate,  and  the  she-wolf 
Reg-an  not  have  endured  to  play  the  pranks  upon 
his  fled  wits,  which  thou  hast  made  thy  Quixote 
suffer  in  Duchesses'  halls,  and  at  the  hands  of  that 
unworthy  nobleman.* 

In  the  ''First  Adventures,"  even,  it  needed  all 
the  art  of  the  most  consummate  artist  in  the  book 
way  that  the  world  hath  yet  seen,  to  keep  up  in 
the  mind  of  the  reader  the  heroic  attributes  of  the 
character  without  relaxing  ;  so  as  absolutely  that 
they  shall  suffer  no  alloy  from  the  debasing  fellow- 
ship of  the  clown.  If  it  ever  obtrudes  itself  as 
a  disharmony,  are  we  inclined  to  laugh  ;  or  not, 
rather,  to  indulge  a  contrary  emotion  ?  Cervantes, 
stung,  perchance,  by  the  relish  with  which  his 
Reading  Public  had  received  the  fooleries  of  the 
man,  more  to  their  palates  than  the  generosities 
of  the  master,  in  the  sequel  let  his  pen  run  riot, 
lost  the  harmony  and  the  balance,  and  sacrificed 
a  great  idea  to  the  taste  of  his  contemporaries. 
We  know  that  in  the  present  day  the  Knight  has 
fewer  admirers  than  the  Squire.  Anticipating, 
what  did  actually  happen  to  him, — as  afterwards 
it  did  to  his  scarce  inferior  follower,  the  Author 
of  "Guzman  de  Alfarache," — that  some  less 
knowing  hand  would  prevent  him  by  a  spurious 
Second  Part,  and  judging  that  it  would  be  easier 
for  his  competitor  to  outbid  him  in  the  comical- 
ities, than  in  the  romance,  of  his  work,  he  aban- 
doned his  Knight,  and  has  fairly  set  up  the  Squire 
for  his  hero.  For  what  else  has  he  unsealed  the 
eyes  of  Sancho  ?  and  instead  of  that  twilight  state 
of  semi'insanity — the  madness  at  second-hand — 

*  Yet  from  this  Second  Part  our  cried-up  pictures  are  mostly 
selected ;  the  waitmg-women  with  beards,  etc. 
27 


4i8  leseti^B  ot  Blla. 

the  contagion,  caught  from  a  stronger  mind 
infected — that  war  between  native  cunning  and 
hereditary  deference,  with  which  he  has  hitherto 
accompanied  his  master, — two  for  a  pair  almost, 
— does  he  substitute  a  downright  Knave,  with 
open  eyes,  for  his  own  ends  only  following  a  con- 
fessed Madman  ;  and  offering  at  one  time  to  lay, 
if  not  actually  laying  hands  upon  him  !  From 
the  moment  that  Sancho  loses  his  reverence,  Don 
Quixote  is  become — a  treatable  lunatic.  Our 
artists  handle  him  accordingly. 


THE  WEDDING. 


I  DO  not  know  when  I  have  been  better  pleased 
than  at  being  invited  last  week  to  be  present  at 
the  wedding  of  a  friend's  daughter.  1  like  to  make 
one  at  these  ceremonies,  which  to  us  old  people 
give  back  our  youth  in  a  manner,  and  restore  our 
gayest  season,  in  the  remembrance  of  our  own 
success,  or  the  regrets,  scarcely  less  tender,  of  our 
own  youthful  disappointments,  in  this  point  of  a 
settlement.  On  these  occasions  I  am  sure  to  be 
in  good  humor  for  a  week  or  two  after,  and  enjoy 
a  reflected  honeymoon.  Being  without  a  family, 
I  am  flattered  with  these  temporary  adoptions 
into  a  friend's  family  ;  I  feel  a  sort  of  cousinhood, 
or  uncleship,  for  the  season  ;  I  am  inducted 
into  degrees  of  affinity  ;  and  in  the  participated 
socialities  of  the  little  community,  I  lay  down  for 
a  brief  while  my  solitary  bachelorship.  I  carry 
this  humor  so  far  that  I  take  it  unkindly  to  be  left 
out,  even  when  a  funeral  is  going  on  in  the  house 
of  a  dear  friend.     But  to  my  subject. 

The  union  itself  had  been  long  settled,  but  its 
celebration  had  been  hitherto  deferred  to  an  al- 
most unreasonable  state  of  suspense  in  the  lovers 
by  some  invincible  prejudices  which  the  bride's 
father  had  unhappily  contracted  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  the  too  early  marriages  of  females.     He 

419 


420  B^sa^s  of  ;ei{a. 

has  been  lecturing  any  time  these  five  years — for 
to  that  length  the  courtship  has  been  protracted — ■ 
upon  the  propriety  of  putting  off  the  solemnity  till 
the  lady  should  have  completed  her  five  and 
twentieth  year.  We  all  began  to  be  afraid  that  a 
suit  which  as  yet  had  abated  of  none  of  its  ardors, 
might  at  last  be  lingered  on  till  passion  had  time 
to  cool,  and  love  go  out  in  the  experiment. 
But  a  little  wheedling  on  the  part  of  his  wife,  who 
was  by  no  means  a  party  to  these  overstrained 
notions,  joined  to  some  serious  expostulations  on 
that  of  his  friends,  who,  from  the  growing  infirm- 
ities of  the  old  gentleman,  could  not  promise  our- 
selves many  years'  enjoyment  of  his  company, 
and  were  anxious  to  bring  matters  to  a  conclusion 
during  his  lifetime,  at  length  prevailed  ;  and  on 
Monday    last    the    daughter    of  my    old   friend, 

Admiral ,  having  attained  the  wof?ia?i/y  age 

of  nineteen,  was  conducted  to  the  church  by  her 

pleasant  cousin  J ,  who  told  some  few  years 

older. 

Before  the  youthful  part  of  my  female  readers  ex- 
press their  indignation  at  the  abominable  loss  of 
time  occasioned  to  the  lovers  by  the  preposterous 
notions  of  my  old  friend,  they  will  do  well  to  consid- 
er the  reluctance  which  a  fond  parent  naturally  feels 
at  parting  with  his  child.  To  this  unwillingness, 
I  believe,  in  most  cases  may  be  traced  the  differ- 
ence of  opinion  on  this  point  between  child  and 
parent,  whatever  pretences  of  interest  or  prudence 
may  be  held  out  to  cover  it.  The  hardheartedness 
of  fathers  is  a  fine  theme  for  romance  writers,  a 
sure  and  moving  topic  ;  but  is  there  not  something 
untender,  to  say  no  more  of  it,  in  the  hurry  which 
a  beloved  child  is  sometimes   in   to  tear  herself 


Zbc  mc^tfim*  421 

from  the  paternal  stock,  and  commit  herself  to 
strange  graftings  ?  The  case  is  heightened  where 
the  lady,  as  in  the  present  instance, happens  to  be 
an  only  child.  I  do  not  understand  these  matters 
experimentally,  but  I  can  make  a  shrewd  guess  at 
the  wounded  pride  of  a  parent  upon  these  occa- 
sions. It  is  no  new  observation,  I  believe,  that  a 
lover  in  most  cases  has  no  rival  so  much  to  be 
feared  as  the  father.  Certainly  there  is  a  jealousy 
in  unparallel  subjects,  which  is  little  less  heart- 
rending than  the  passion  which  we  more  strictly 
christen  by  that  name.  Mothers'  scruples  are  more 
easily  got  over  ;  for  this  reason,  I  suppose,  that 
the  protection  transferred  to  a  husband  is  less  a 
derogation  and  a  loss  to  their  authority  than  to 
the  paternal.  Mothers,  besides,  have  a  trembling 
foresight,  which  paints  the  inconveniences  (impos- 
sible to  be  conceived  in  the  same  degree  by  the 
other  parent)  of  a  life  of  forlorn  celibacy,  which 
the  refusal  of  a  tolerable  match  may  entail  upon 
their  child.  Mothers'  instinct  is  a  surer  guide  here 
than  the  cold  reasonings  of  a  father  on  such  a  topic. 
To  this  instinct  may  be  imputed,  and  by  it  alone 
may  be  excused,  the  unbeseeming  artifices,  by 
which  some  wives  push  on  the  matrimonial  projects 
of  their  daughters,  which  the  husband,  however 
approving,  shall  entertain  with  comparative  in- 
difference. A  little  shamelessness  on  this  head  is 
pardonable.  With  this  explanation,  forwardness 
becomes  a  grace,  and  maternal  importunity 
receives  the  name  of  a  virtue.  But  the  parson 
stays,  while  I  preposterously  assume  his  office  ; 
I  am  preaching,  while  the  bride  is  on  the  thresh- 
old. 

Nor  let  any  of  my  female  readers  suppose  that 


422  lEesa^e  of  BUa. 

the  sage  reflections  which  have  just  escaped  me 
have  the  obliquest  tendency  of  application  to  the 
young  lady  who,  it  will  be  seen,  is  about  to  ven- 
ture upon  a  change  in  her  condition,  at  a  mature 
and  competent  age,  and  not  without  the  fullest 
approbation  of  all  parties.  I  only  deprecate  very 
hasty  7narriages. 

It  had  been  fixed  that  the  ceremony  should  be 
gone  through  at  an  early  hour,  to  give  time  for  a 
little  dejeune  afterwards,  to  which  a  select  party 
of  friends  had  been  invited.  We  were  in  church  a 
little  before  the  clock  struck  eight. 

Nothing  could  be  more  judicious  or  graceful  than 
the  dress  of  the  bridesmaids — the  three  charming 
Miss  Foresters — on  this  morning.  To  give  the 
bride  an  opportunity  of  shining  singly,  they  had 
come  habited  all  in  green.  I  am  ill  at  describ- 
ing female  apparel ;  but  while  she  stood  at  the 
altar  in  vestments  white  and  candid  as  her 
thoughts,  a  sacrificial  whiteness,  thejy  assisted  in 
robes  such  as  might  become  Diana's  nymphs, — 
Foresters  indeed, — as  such  who  had  not  yet  come 
to  the  resolution  of  putting  off  cold  virginity. 
These  young  maids,  not  being  so  blest  as  to  have 
a  mother  living,  I  am  told,  keep  single  for  their 
father's  sake,  and  live  altogether  so  happy  with 
their  remaining  parent,  that  the  hearts  of  their 
lovers  are  ever  broken  with  the  prospect  (so  in- 
auspicious to  their  hopes)  of  such  uninterrupted 
and  provoking  home-comfort.  Gallant  girls  ! 
Such  a  victim  worthy  of  Iphigenia  ! 

I  do  not  know  what  business  I  have  to  be  pres- 
ent in  solemn  places.  I  cannot  divest  me  of  an 
unseasonable  disposition  to  levity  upon  the  most 
awful   occasion.     I  was  never   cut  for  a  public 


functionary.  Ceremony  and  I  have  long  shaken 
hands  ;  but  I  could  not  resist  the  importunities  of 
the  young  lady's  father,  whose  gout  unhappily 
confined  him  at  home,  to  act  as  parent  on  this 
occasion,  and  g-ive  away  the  bride.  Something 
ludicrous  occurred  to  me  at  this  most  serious  of 
all  moments, — a  sense  of  my  unfitness  to  have 
the  disposal,  even  in  imagination,  of  the  sweet 
young  creature  beside  me.  I  fear  I  was  betrayed 
to  some  lightness,  for  the  awful  eye  of  the  parson 
— and  the  rector's  eye  of  Saint  Mildred's  in  the 
Poultry  is  no  trifle  of  a  rebuke — was  upon  me  in 
an  instant,  souring  my  incipient  jest  to  thetristul 
severities  of  a  funeral. 

This  was  the  only  misbehavior  which  I  can  plead 
to  upon  this  solemn  occasion,  unless  what  was 
objected  to  me  after  the  ceremony,  by  one  of  the 

handsome  Miss  T s,  be  accounted  a  solecism. 

She  was  pleased  to  say  that  she  had  never  seen  a 
gentleman  before  me  give  away  a  bride,  in  black. 
Now  black  has  been  my  ordinary  apparel  so  long 
— indeed  I  take  it  to  be  the  proper  costume  of  an 
author — the  state  sanctions  it, — that  to  have 
appeared  in  some  lighter  color  would  have  raised 
more  mirth  at  my  expense,  than  the  anomaly  had 
created  censure.  But  I  could  perceive  that  the 
bride's  mother,  and  some  elderly  ladies  present 
(God  bless  them  !)  would  have  been  well  content 
if  I  had  come  in  any  other  color  than  that.  But 
I  got  over  the  omen  by  a  lucky  apologue,  which  I 
remembered  out  of  Pilpay,  or  some  Indian  author, 
of  all  the  birds  being  invited  to  the  linnet's  wed- 
ding, at  which  when  all  the  rest  came  in  their  gay- 
est feathers,  the  raven  alone  apologized  for  his 
cloak  because  ' '  he  had  no  other. "     This  tolerably 


424  Bssa^s  of  BUa. 

reconciled  the  elders,  But  with  the  young  people 
all  was  merriment,  shaking  of  hands  and  con- 
gratulations, and  kissing  away  the  bride's  tears, 
and  kissing  from  her  in  return,  till  a  young  lady, 
who  assumed  some  experience  in  these  matters, 
having  worn  the  nuptial  bands  some  four  or  five 
weeks  longer  than  her  friend,  rescued  her,  archly 
observing,  with  half  an  eye  upon  the  bridegroom, 
that  at  this  rate  she  would  have  "none  left." 

IMy  friend  the  Admiral  was  in  fine  wig  and 
buckle  on  this  occasion — a  striking  contrast  to  his 
usual  neglect  of  personal  appearance.  He  did 
not  once  shove  up  his  borrowed  locks  (his  custom 
ever  at  his  morning  studies)  to  betray  the  few  gray 
stragglers  of  his  own  beneath  them.  He  wore  an 
aspect  of  thoughtful  satisfaction.  I  trembled  for 
the  hour,  which  at  length  approached,  when  after 
a  protracted  breakfast  of  three  hours — if  stores  of 
cold  fowl,  tongues,  hams,  botargoes,  dried  fruit, 
wines,  cordials,  etc,,  can  deserve  so  meagre  an 
appellation — the  coach  was  announced,  which  was 
come  to  carry  off  the  bride  and  bridegroom  for  a 
season,  as  custom  has  sensibly  ordained,  into  the 
country ;  upon  which  design,  wishing  them  a 
felicitous  journey,  let  us  return  to  the  assembled 
guests. 

As  when  a  well-graced  actor  leaves  the  stage, 

The  eyes  of  men 

Are  idly  bent  on  him  that  enters  next, 

so  idly  did  we  bend  our  eyes  upon  one  another, 
when  the  chief  performers  in  the  mornings  page- 
ant had  vanished.  None  told  his  tale.  None  sipped 
her  glass.  The  poor  Admiral  made  an  effort, — it 
was  not  much.  I  had  anticipated  so  far.  Even 
the  infinity  of  full  satisfaction,  that  had  betrayed 


^be  "QCleODUis.  425 

itself  through  the  prim  looks  and  quiet  deportment 
of  his  lady,  began  to  wane  into  something  of  mis- 
giving. No  one  knew  whether  to  take  their  leaves 
or  stay.  We  seemed  assembled  upon  a  silly  occa- 
sion. In  this  crisis,  betwixt  tarrying  and  depart- 
ure, I  must  do  justice  to  a  foolish  talent  of  mine, 
which  had  otherwise  like  to  have  brought  me 
into  disgrace  in  the  forepart  of  the  day  ;  I  mean  a 
power,  in  my  emergency,  of  thinking  and  giving 
vent  to  all  manner  of  strange  nonsense.  In  this 
awkward  dilemma  I  found  it  sovereign.  I  rattled 
off  some  of  my  most  excellent  absurdities.  All 
were  willing  to  be  relieved,  at  any  expense  of 
reason,  from  the  pressure  of  the  intolerable  vacuum 
which  had  succeeded  to  the  morning  bustle.  By 
this  means  I  was  fortunate  in  keeping  together  the 
better  part  of  the  company  to  a  late  hour ;  and  a 
rubber  of  whist  (the  Admiral's  favorite  game)  with 
some  rare  strokes  of  chance  as  well  as  skill,  which 
came  opportunely  on  his  side, — lengthened  out 
till  midnight,— dismissed  the  old  gentleman  at  last 
to  his  bed  with  comparatively  easy  spirits. 

I  have  been  at  my  old  friend's  various  times 
since.  I  do  not  know  a  visiting  place  where 
every  guest  is  so  perfectly  at  his  ease  ;  nowhere, 
where  harmony  is  so  strangely  the  result  of  confu- 
sion. Everybody  is  at  cross-purposes,  yet  the 
effect  is  so  much  better  than  uniformity.  Contra- 
dictory orders  ;  servants  pulling  one  way  ;  master 
and  mistress  driving  some  other,  yet  both  diverse  ; 
visitors  huddled  up  in  corners ;  chairs  unsym- 
metrized  ;  candles  disposed  by  chance  ;  meals  at 
odd  hours,  tea  and  supper  at  once,  or  the  latter 
preceding  the  former  ;  the  host  and  the  guest 
conferring,  yet  each  upon  a  different  topic,  each 


426  Bssa^s  ot  jeiia. 

understanding  himself,  neither  trying  to  under- 
stand nor  hear  the  other  ;  draughts  and  poHtics, 
chess  and  political  economy,  cards  and  conversa- 
tion on  nautical  matters,  going  on  at  once,  without 
the  hope,  or  indeed  the  wish,  of  distinguishing 
them,  make  it  altogether  the  most  perfect  Concor- 
dia discors  you  shall  meet  with.  Yet  somehow 
the  old  house  is  not  quite  what  it  should  be.  The 
Admiral  still  enjoys  his  pipe,  but  he  has  no  Miss 
Emily  to  fill  it  for  him.  The  instrument  stands 
where  it  stood,  but  she  is  gone  whose  delicate 
touch  could  sometimes  for  a  short  minute  appease 
the  warring  elements.  He  has  learned,  as  Marvel 
expresses  it,  to  ''make  his  destiny  his  choice." 
He  bears  bravely  up,  but  he  does  not  come  out 
with  his  flashes  of  wild  wit  so  thick  as  formerly. 
His  sea  songs  seldom  escape  him.  His  wife, 
too,  looks  as  if  she  wanted  some  younger  body  to 
scold  and  set  to  rights.  We  all  miss  a  junior  pres- 
ence. It  is  wonderful  how  one  young  maiden 
freshens  up,  and  keeps  green,  the  paternal  roof. 
Old  and  young  seem  to  have  an  interest  in  her, 
so  long  as  she  is  not  absolutely  disposed  of.  The 
youthfnlness  of  the  house  is  flown.  Emily  is 
married. 


REJOICINGS  UPON  THE  NEW  YEAR'S 
COMING  OF  AGE. 


The  Old  Year  being  dead,  and  the  New  Year 
coming  of  age,  which  he  does,  by  Calendar  Law 
as  soon  as  the  breath  is  out  of  the  old  gentleman's 
body,  nothing  would  serve  the  young  spark  but 
he  must  give  a  dinner  upon  the  occasion,  to 
which  all  the  Days  in  the  year  were  invited.  The 
Festivals,  whom  he  deputed  as  his  stewards,  were 
mightily  taken  with  the  notion.  They  had  been 
engaged  time  out  of  mind,  they  said,  in  providing 
mirth  and  good  cheer  for  mortals  below  :  and  it 
was  time  they  should  have  a  taste  of  their  own 
bounty.  It  was  stiffly  debated  among  them 
whether  the  Fasts  should  be  admitted.  Some 
said  the  appearance  of  such  lean,  starved  guests, 
with  their  mortified  faces,  would  pervert  the  ends 
of  the  meeting.  But  the  objection  was  overruled 
by  Christmas-Day,  who  had  a  design  upon  Ash- 
Wednesday  (as  you  shall  hear),  and  a  mighty  de- 
sire to  see  how  the  old  Dominie  would  behave 
himself  in  his  cups.  Only  the  Vigils  were  re- 
quested to  come  with  their  lanterns,  to  light  the 
gentlefolks  home  at  night. 

All  the  Days  came  to  their  day.  Covers  were 
provided  for  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  guests 
at  the  principal  table;  with  an  occasional  knife 

427 


428  Bssa^s  ot  ;eiia. 

and  fork  at  the  sideboard  for  the  Twenty-ninth  of 
February, 

I  should  have  told  you  that  cards  of  invitation 
had  been  issued.  The  carriers  were  the  Hours  ; 
twelve  little,  merry,  whirligig  foot-pages,  as  you 
should  desire  to  see,  that  went  all  round,  and 
found  out  the  persons  invited  well  enough,  with 
the  exception  of  Easier-day ,  Shrove- Tuesday,  and 
a  few  such  Movables,  who  had  lately  shifted  their 
quarters. 

Well,  they  all  met  at  last,  foul  Days,  fine  Days, 
all  sorts  of  Days,  and  a  rare  din  they  made  of  it. 
There  was  nothing  but,  Hail  !  fellow  Day, — well 
met, — brother  Day — sister  Day — only  Lady-Day 
kept  a  little  on  the  aloof  and  seemed  somewhat 
scornful.  Yet  some  said  Twelfth-Day  cut  her  out 
and  out,  for  she  came  out  in  a  tiffany  suit,  white 
and  gold,  like  a  queen  on  a  frost-cake,  all  royal, 
^\i\.Q,x\Vi^,  7xvi<X  Epiphanous.  The  rest  came,  some 
in  green,  some  in  white, — but  old  Lent  aiid  his 
family  were  not  yet  out  of  mourning.  Rainy 
Days  came  in,  dripping  ;  and  sunshiny  Days 
helped  them  to  change  their  stockings.  Wedding 
Day  was  there  in  his  marriage  finery,  a  little 
the  worse  for  wear.  Pay-Day  came  late,  as  he 
always  does  ;  and  Doomsday  sent  word — he  might 
be  expected. 

April  Fool  (as  my  young  lord  s  jester)  took  upon 
himself  to  marshal  the  guests,  and  wild  work  he 
made  with  it.  It  would  have  posed  old  Erra 
Pater  to  have  found  out  any  given  Day  in  the 
year,  to  erect  a  scheme  upon — good  Days,  bad 
Days,  were  so  shuffled  together,  to  the  confound- 
ing of  all  sober  horoscopy. 

He  had  stuck  the   Twenty-first  of  June  next  to 


Zbc  IRew  l^ear's  Coming  ot  Bge.        429 

the  Twenty-second  of  December,  and  the  former 
looked  hke  a  Maypole  siding-  a  marrow-bone. 
Ash-  Wednesday  got  wedged  in  (as  was  concerted) 
betwixt  Christmas  and  Lord  Mayor  s  Days. 
Lord !  how  he  laid  about  him  !  Nothing  but 
barons  of  beef  and  turkeys  would  go  down  with 
him, — to  the  great  greasing  and  detriment  of  his 
new  sackcloth  bib  and  tucker.  And  still  Christmas- 
Day  was  at  his  elbow,  plying  him  with  the  wassail- 
bowl,  till  he  roared,  and  hiccupp'd  and  protested 
there  was  no  faith  in  dried  ling,  but  commended  it 
to  the  devil  for  a  sour,  windy,  acrimonious,  cen- 
sorious hy-po-crit-crit-critical  mess,  and  no  dish 
for  a  gentleman.  Then  he  dipped  his  fist  into  the 
middle  of  the  great  custard  that  stood  before  his 
left-hand  neighbor,  and  daubed  his  hungry  beard  all 
over  with  it,  till  you  would  have  taken  him  for 
the  Last  Day  in  December,  it  so  hung  in  icicles. 

At  another  part  of  the  table  Shrove-Tuesday  was 
helping  the  Second  of  September  to  some  cock 
broth, — which  courtesy  the  latter  returned  with 
the  delicate  thigh  of  a  hen  pheasant, — so  there 
was  no  love  lost  for  that  matter.  The  Last  of 
Le?it  was  sponging  upon  Shrovetide's  pancakes, 
which.  April  Fool  perceiving,  told  him  he  did  well, 
for  pancakes  were  proper  to  a  good  fry-day. 

In  another  part  a  hubbub  arose  about  the 
Thirtieth  of  faniiary,  who,  it  seems,  being  a  sour 
puritanic  character,  that  thought  nobody's  meat 
good  or  sanctified  enough  for  him,  had  smuggled 
into  the  room  a  calf's  head,  which  he  had  cooked 
at  home  for  tliat  purpose,  thinking  to  feast  thereon 
incontinently  ;  but  as  it  lay  in  the  dish  March 
Manyweathers,  who  is  a  very  fine  lady,  and  sub- 
ject to  the  megrims,  screamed  out  there  was  a 


430  iBse^^s  of  :eifa. 

*' human  head  in  the  platter,"  and  raved  about 
Herodias' daughter  to  that  degree  that  the  obnox- 
ious viand  was  obliged  to  be  removed  ;  nor  did 
she  recover  her  stomach  till  she  had  gulped  down 
a  Restorative,  confected  of  Oak  Apple,  which  the 
merry  Twenty -ninth  of  May  always  carries  about 
with  him  for  that  purpose. 

The  King's  health  *  being  called  for  after  this, 
a  notable  dispute  arose  between  the  T-welfth  of 
August  (a  zealous  old  Whig  gentlewoman)  and 
the  Twenty-third  of  April  (a  new-fangled  lady  of 
the  Tory  stamp),  as  to  which  of  them  should  have 
the  honor  to  propose  it.  August  grew  hot  upon 
the  matter,  affirming  time  out  of  mind  the  prescrip- 
tive right  to  have  lain  with  her,  till  her  rival  had 
basely  supplanted  her  ;  whom  she  represented  as 
little  better  than  a  kept  mistress,  who  went  about 
in  fine  clothes,  while  she  (the  legitimate  Birthday) 
had  scarcely  a  rag,  etc. 

April  Fool,  being  made  mediator,  confirmed  the 
right  in  the  strongest  form  of  words  to  the  appel- 
lant, but  decided  for  peace's  sake  that  the  exercise 
of  it  should  remain  with  the  present  possessor. 
At  the  same  time  he  slyly  rounded  the  first  lady  in 
the  ear,  that  an  action  might  lie  against  the  Crown 
for  hi-geny. 

It  beginning  to  grow  a  little  duskish,  Ca^idlemas 
lustily  bawled  out  for  lights,  which  was  opposed 
by  all  the  Days,  who  protested  against  burning 
daylight.  Then  fair  water  was  handed  round  in 
silver  ewers,  and  the  same  lady  was  observed  to 
take  an  unusual  time  in  Washing  herself. 

May-day,  with  that  sweetness  which  is  pecul- 
iar to  her,  in  a  neat  speech  proposing  the  health 

*  King  George  IV. 


XLbc  "flew  l^ear's  Coming  of  Bge,        431 

of  the  founder,  crowned  her  goblet  (and  by  her 
example  the  rest  of  the  company)  with  garlands. 
This  being  done,  the  lordly  A^ew  Fear  from  the 
upper  end  of  the  table,  in  a  cordial  but  somewhat 
lofty  tone,  returned  thanks.  He  felt  proud  on  an 
occasion  of  meeting  so  many  of  his  worthy  father's 
late  tenants,  promised  to  improve  their  farms, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  abate  (if  any  thing  was 
found  unreasonable)  in  their  rents. 

At  the  mention  of  this,  the  four  Quarter  Days 
involuntarily  looked  at  each  other,  and  smiled ; 
April  /I90/  whispered  to  an  old  tune  of  "  new 
Brooms  "  ;  and  a  surly  old  rebel  at  the  farther 
end  of  the  table  (who  was  discovered  to  be  no 
other  than  the  Fifth  0/ November)  muttered  out, 
distinctly  enough  to  be  heard  by  the  whole  com- 
pany, words  to  this  effect,  that  ''when  the  old 
one  is  gone,  he  is  a  fool  that  looks  for  a  better." 
Which  rudeness  of  his,  the  guests  resenting,  unan- 
imously voted  his  expulsion  ;  and  the  male-con- 
tent was  thrust  out  neck  and  heels  into  the  cellar, 
as  the  properest  place  for  such  a  houtefeu  and 
firebrand  as  he  had  shown  himself  to  be. 

Order  being  restored,  the  young  lord  (who,  to 
say  truth,  had  been  a  little  ruffled,  and  put  beside 
his  oratory)  in  a  few  and  yet  as  obliging  words 
as  possible,  assured  them  of  entire  welcome  ;  and 
with  a  graceful  turn,  singling  out  poor  old  Twenty- 
ninth  of  February,  that  had  sat  all  the  while 
mum-chance  at  the  sideboard,  begged  to  couple 
his  health  with  that  of  the  good  company  before 
him,  which  he  drank  accordingly,  observing  that 
he  had  not  seen  his  honest  face  at  any  time  these 
four  years,  with  a  number  of  endearing  expressions 
besides.     At  the  same  time,  removing  the  solitary 


432  Bssai^s  of  I6l(a, 

Day  from  the  forlorn  seat  which  had  been  assigned 
him,  he  stationed  him  at  his  own  board,  some- 
where between  the  Greek  Calends  and  Latter  Lam- 
mas. 

Ash-Wed?iesday  being  now  called  upon  for  a 
song,  with  his  eyes  fast  stuck  in  his  head,  and 
as  well  as  the  Canary  he  had  swallowed  would 
give  him  leave,  struck  up  a  Carol,  which  Christ- 
mas-Day  had  taught  him  for  the  nonce  ;  and  was 
followed  by  the  latter,  who  gave  '*  Miserere  "  in 
line  style,  hitting  off  the  mumping  notes  and 
lengthened  drawl  of  Old  Mortification  with  infinite 
humor.  April  Fool  swore  they  had  exchanged 
conditions  ;  but  Good-Friday  was  observed  to 
look  extremely  grave  ;  and  Sunday  held  her  fan 
before  her  face,  that  she  might  not  be  seen  to  smile. 

Shrovetide,  Lord  Mayor  s  Day,  and  April  Fool, 
next  joined  in  a  glee — 

Which  is  the  properest  day  to  drink  ? 

in  which  all  the  Days  chiming  in,  made  a  merry 
burden. 

They  next  fell  to  quibbles  and  conundrums. 
The  question  being  proposed,  who  had  the  great- 
est number  of  followers,  the  Quarter  Days  said 
there  could  be  no  question  as  to  that,  for  they 
had  all  the  creditors  in  the  world  dogging  their 
heels.  But  April  Fool g3.YQ  it  in  favor  of  the  Forty 
Days  be/ore  Easter ;  because  the  debtors  in  all 
cases  outnumber  the  creditors,  and  they  kept  lent 
all  the  year. 

All  this  while  Valentine's  Day  kept  courting 
pretty  May  who  sat  next  to  him,  slipping  amorous 
billets-doux  under  the  table,  till  the  tlog-Days  (who 
are  naturally  of  a  warm  constitution)  began  to  be 


Zbc  1Rcw  l^car'6  Coming  of  Sfle.        433 

jealous,  and  to  bark  and  rage  exceedingly.  April 
Fool,  who  likes  a  bit  of  sport  above  measure,  and 
had  some  pretensions  to  the  lady  besides,  as  being 
but  a  cousin  once  removed,  clapped  and  halloo'd 
them  on  ;  and  as  fast  as  their  indignation  cooled, 
those  mad  wags,  the  Efnber  Days,  were  at  it  with 
their  bellows,  to  blow  it  into  a  flame  ;  and  all  was 
in  a  ferment,  till  old  Madam  Septuagesima  (who 
boasts  herself  the  Af other  of  the  Days)  wisely  di- 
verted the  conversation  with  a  tedious  tale  of  the 
lovers  which  she  could  reckon  when  she  was 
young,  and  of  one  Master  Rogation  Day  in  par- 
ticular, who  was  forever  putting  the  question  to 
her  ;  but  she  kept  him  at  a  distance,  as  the  chron- 
icle would  tell, — by  which  I  apprehend  she  meant 
the  Almanac.  Then  she  rambled  on  to  the  Days 
that  were  gone,  the  good  old  Days,  and  so  to  the 
Days  before  the  Flood,  which  plainly  showed  her 
old  head  to  be  little  better  than  crazed  and  doited. 
Day  being  ended,  the  Days,  called  for  their 
cloaks  and  great-coats,  and  took  their  leaves. 
Lord  Mayor's  Day  went  off  in  a  Mist,  as  usual  ; 
Shortest  Day  in  a  deep  black  Fog,  that  wrapped 
the  little  gentleman  all  round  like  a  hedgehog. 
Two  Vigils — so  watchmen  are  called  in  heaven — 
saw  Christmas-Day  safe  home  ;  they  had  been 
used  to  the  business  before.  Another  Vigil — a 
stout,  sturdy  patrol,  called  the  Eve  of  St.  Chris- 
topher— seeing ylsA-  Wed?tesday  in  a  condition  little 
better  than  he  should  be,  e'en  whipped  him  over 
his  shoulders,  pick-a-pack  fashion,  and  0/d  Morti- 
ficaiion  went  floating  home  singing — 

On  the  bat's  back  do  I  fly, 

and  a  number  of  old   snatches   besides,  between 


434  jeasa^s  of  jeiia. 

drunk  and  sober  ;  but  very  few  Aves  or  Penitenti- 
aries (you  may  believe  me)  were  among  them. 
Longest  Day  set  off  westward  in  beautiful  crimson 
and  gold, — the  rest,  some  in  one  fashion,  some  in 
another ;  but  Vale7itme  and  pretty  May  took  their 
departure  together  in  one  of  the  prettiest  silvery 
twilights  a  Lover's  Day  could  wish  to  set  in. 


OLD  CHINA. 


I  HAVE  an  almost  feminine  partiality  for  old 
china.  When  I  go  to  see  any  great  house,  I  in- 
quire for  the  china-closet,  and  next  for  the  picture- 
gallery.  I  cannot  defend  the  order  of  preference, 
but  by  saying,  that  we  have  all  some  taste  or 
other,  of  too  ancient  a  date  to  admit  of  our  re- 
membering distinctly  that  it  was  an  acquired  one. 
I  can  call  to  mind  the  first  play,  and  the  first  exhi- 
bition, that  I  was  taken  to  ;  but  I  am  not  con- 
scious of  a  time  when  china  jars  and  saucers  were 
introduced  into  my  imagination. 

I  had  no  repugnance  then — why  should  I  now 
have  ? — to  those  little,  lawless,  azure-tinctured 
grotesques  that,  under  the  notion  of  men  and 
women,  float  about,  uncircumscribed  by  any  ele- 
ment, in  that  world  before  perspective — a  china 
teacup. 

I  like  to  see  my  old  friends — whom  distance 
cannot  diminish — figuring  up  in  the  air  (so  they 
appear  to  our  optics),  yet  on  /erra  Jirma  still, — for 
so  we  must  in  courtesy  interpret  that  speck  of 
deeper  blue, — which  the  decorous  artist,  to  pre- 
vent absurdity,  had  made  to  spring  up  beneath 
their  sandals. 

I  love  the  men  with  women's  faces,  and  the 
women,  if  possible,  with  still  more  womanish 
expressions. 

435 


436  JEee^^s  of  £lla. 

Here  is  a  young  and  courtly  Mandarin,  hand- 
ing- tea  to  a  lady  from  a  salver,  two  miles  off. 
See  how  distance  seems  to  set  off  respect !  And 
here  the  same  lady,  or  another — for  likeness  is 
identity  on  teacups — is  stepping  into  a  little  fairy 
boat,  moored  on  the  hither  side  of  this  calm  gar- 
den river,  with  a  dainty  mincing  foot,  which  in  a 
right  angle  of  incidence  (as  angles  go  in  our 
world)  must  infallibly  land  her  in  the  midst  of  a 
flowery  mead — a  furlong  off  on  the  other  side  of 
the  same  strange  stream  ! 

Farther  on— if  far  and  near  can  be  predicated 
of  their  world — see  horses,  trees,  pagodas,  danc- 
ing the  hays. 

Here — a  cow  and  rabbit  couchant,  and  coex- 
tensive—so objects  show,  seen  through  the  lucid 
atmosphere  of  fine  Cathay. 

I  was  pointing  out  to  my  cousin  last  evening, 
over  our  Hyson  (which  we  are  old-fashioned 
enough  to  drink  unmixed  still  of  an  afternoon), 
some  of  these  spedosa  viiracula  upon  a  set  of  ex- 
traordinary old  blue  china  (a  recent  purchase) 
which  we  were  now  for  the  first  time  using ;  and 
could  not  help  remarking,  how  favorable  circum- 
stances had  been  to  us  of  late  years,  that  we  could 
afford  to  please  the  eye  sometimes  with  trifles  of 
this  sort — when  a  passing  sentiment  seemed  to 
overshade  the  brows  of  my  companion.  I  am 
quick  at  detecting  these  summer  clouds  in  Bridget. 

**  I  wish  the  good  old  times  would  come  again," 
she  said,  "  when  we  were  not  quite  so  rich.  I  do 
not  mean  that  I  want  to  be  poor  ;  but  there  was 
a  middle  state" — so  she  was  pleased  to  ramble 
on — "in  which  I  am  sure  we  were  a  great  deal 
happier.     A  purchase  is  but  a  purchase,  now  that 


©l&  Cblna. 


437 


you  have  money  enough  and  to  spare.  Formerly 
it  used  to  be  a  triumph.  When  we  coveted  a 
cheap  luxury  (and,  oh,  how  much  ado  I  had  to 
get  you  to  consent  in  those  times  !) — we  were 
used  to  have  a  debate  two  or  three  days  before, 
and  to  weigh  the/or  and  against,  and  think  what 
we  might  spare  it  out  of,  and  what  saving  we 
could  hit  upon  that  should  be  an  equivalent  A 
thing  was  Avorth  buying  then  when  we  felt  the 
money  that  we  paid  for  it. 

*'Do  you  remember  the  brown  suit,  which  you 
made  to  hang  upon  you  till  all  your  friends  cried 
shame  upon  you,  it  grew  so  threadbare — and  all 
because  of  that  folio  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
which  you  dragged  home  late  at  night  from 
Barker's  in  Covent  Garden  .?  Do  you  remember 
how  we  eyed  it  for  weeks  before  we  could  make 
up  our  minds  to  the  purchase,  and  had  not  come 
to  a  determination  till  it  was  near  ten  o'clock  of 
the  Saturday  night,  when  you  set  off  from  Isling- 
ton, fearing  you  should  be  too  late, — and  when 
the  old  bookseller  with  some  grumbUng  opened 
his  shop,  and  by  the  twinkling  taper,  (for  he  was 
setting  bedwards)  lighted  out  the  relic  from  his 
dusty  treasures, — and  when  you  lugged  it  home, 
wishing  it  were  twice  as  cumbersome, — and  when 
you  presented  it  to  me, — and  when  we  were  ex- 
ploring the  perfectness  of  it  {collating  you  called 
it),  and  while  I  was  repairing  some  of  the  loose 
leaves  with  paste,  which  your  impatience  would 
not  suffer  to  be  left  till  daybreak, — was  there 
no  pleasure  in  being  a  poor  man  t  or  can  those 
neat  black  clothes  which  you  wear  now,  and  are 
so  careful  to  keep  brushed,  since  we  have  become 
rich  and  finical,  give  you  half  the  honest  vanity. 


438  36663^6  Of  sua, 

with  which  you  flaunted  it  about  in  that  overworn 
suit — your  old  corbeau — for  four  or  live  weeks 
longer  than  you  should  have  done,  to  pacify  your 
conscience  for  the  mighty  sum  of  fifteen — or  six- 
teen shillings  was  it  ? — a  great  affair  we  thought 
it  then — which  you  had  lavished  on  the  old  folio. 
Now  you  can  afford  to  buy  any  book  that  pleases 
you,  but  I  do  not  see  that  you  ever  bring  me 
home  any  nice  old  purchases  now. 

"  When  you  came  home  with  twenty  apologies 
for  laying  out  a  less  number  of  shillings  upon  that 
print  after  Lionardo,  whicli  we  christened  the 
'Lady  Blanch';  when  you  looked  at  the  pur- 
chase, and  thought  of  the  money, — and  looked 
again  at  the  picture, — was  there  no  pleasure  in 
being  a  poor  man  ?  Now,  you  have  nothmg  to  do 
but  walk  into  Colnaghi's,  and  buy  a  wilderness  of 
Lionardos.     Yet  do  you  ? 

''Then,  do  you  remember  our  pleasant  walks 
to  Enfield,  and  Potter's  bar,  and  Waltham,  when 
we  had  a  holiday — holidays,  and  all  other  fun, 
are  gone  now  we  are  rich — and  the  little  hand- 
basket  in  which  I  used  to  deposit  our  day's  fare 
of  savory  cold  lamb  and  salad, — and  how  you 
would  pry  about  at  noontide  for  some  decent 
house,  where  we  mJght  go  in  and  produce  our 
store — only  paying  for  the  ale  that  you  must  call 
for — and  speculate  upon  the  looks  of  the  landlady, 
and  whether  she  was  likely  to  allow  us  a  table- 
cloth— and  wished  for  such  another  honest  host- 
ess as  Izaak  Walton  has  described  many  a  one 
on  the  pleasant  banks  of  the  Lea,  when  he  went 
a-fishing — and  sometimes  they  would  prove  oblig- 
ing enough,  and  sometimes  they  would  look  grudg- 
ingly upon  us, — but  we  had  cheerful  looks  still  for 


©l&  Cbina. 


439 


one  another, and  would  eat  our  plain  food  savorily, 
scarcely  grudging  Piscator  his  Trout  Hall  ?  Now 
— when  we  go  out  a  day's  pleasuring,  which  is 
seldom,  moreover,  we  ride  part  of  the  way,  and 
go  into  a  fine  inn,  and  order  the  best  of  dinners, 
never  debating  the  expense, — which,  after  all, 
never  has  half  the  relish  of  those  chance  country 
snaps,  when  we  were  at  the  mercy  of  uncertain 
usage,  and  a  precarious  welcome. 

"You  are  too  proud  to  see  a  play  anywhere 
now  but  in  the  pit.  Do  you  remember  where  it 
was  we  used  to  sit  when  we  saw  the  Battle  of 
Hexham,  and  the  surrender  of  Calais,  and  Ban- 
nister and  Mrs.  Bland  in  the  ''Children  in  the 
Wood," — when  we  squeezed  out  our  shillings 
a-piece  to  sit  three  or  four  times  in  a  season  in  the 
one-shilling  gallery — where  you  felt  all  the  time 
that  you  ought  not  to  have  brought  me — and  more 
strongly  I  felt  obligation  to  you  for  having  brought 
me — and  the  pleasure  was  the  better  for  a  little 
shame, — and  when  the  curtain  drew  up,  what 
cared  we  for  our  place  in  the  house,  or  what  mat- 
tered it  where  we  were  sitting,  when  our  thoughts 
were  with  Rosalind  in  Arden,  or  with  Viola  at  the 
Court  of  lllyria  ?  You  used  to  say  that  the  gallery 
was  the  best  place  of  all  for  enjoying  a  play  so- 
cially,— that  the  relish  of  such  exhibitions  must  be 
in  proportion  to  the  infrequency  of  going, — that 
the  company  we  met  there,  not  being  in  general 
readers  of  plays,  were  obliged  to  attend  the  more, 
and  did  attend,  to  what  was  going  on  on  the  stage, 
— because  a  word  lost  would  have  been  a  chasm 
which  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  fill  up.  With 
such  reflections  we  consoled  our  pride  then, — and 
I  appeal  to  you,  whether,  as  a  woman,  I  metgener- 


440  Bsaags  of  lEUn, 

ally  with  less  attention  and  accommodation  than, 
I  have  done  since  in  more  expensive  situations  in 
the  house  !  The  getting  in,  indeed,  and  the  crowd- 
ing up  those  inconvenient  staircases,  were  bad 
enough, — but  there  was  still  a  law  of  civility  to 
woman  recognized  to  quite  as  great  an  extent  as 
we  ever  found  in  the  other  passages, — and  how  a 
little  difficulty  overcome  heightened  the  snug  seat 
and  the  play  afterwards  !  Now  we  can  only  pay 
our  money  and  walk  in.  You  cannot  see,  you 
say,  in  the  galleries  now.  I  am  sure  we  saw,  and 
heard  too,  well  enough  then, — but  sight  and  all, 
I  think,  are  gone  with  our  poverty. 

"There  was  pleasure  in  eating  strawberries 
before  they  became  quite  common — in  the  first 
dish  of  peas,  while  they  were  yet  dear, — to  have 
them  for  a  nice  supper,  a  treat.  What  treat  can 
we  have  now  ?  If  we  were  to  treat  ourselves 
now, — that  is,  to  have  dainties  a  little  above  our 
means,  it  would  be  selfish  and  wicked.  It  is  the 
very  little  more  than  we  allow  ourselves  beyond 
what  the  actual  poor  can  get  at,  that  makes  what 
I  call  a  treat, — when  two  people  living  together, 
as  we  have  done,  now  and  then  indulge  them- 
selves in  a  cheap  luxury,  which  both  like  ;  while 
each  apologizes,  and  is  willing  to  take  both  halves 
of  the  blame  to  his  single  share.  I  see  no  harm 
in  people  making  much  of  themselves,  in  that  sense 
of  the  word.  It  may  give  them  a  hint  how  to  make 
much  of  others.  But  now,  what  I  mean  by  the 
word — we  never  do  make  much  of  ourselves. 
None  but  the  poor  can  do  it.  I  do  not  mean  the 
veriest  poor  of  all,  but  persons  as  we  were,  just 
above  poverty. 

"I  know  what  you  are  going  to  say — that  it  is 


©10  Cbina.  441 

mighty  pleasant  at  the  end  of  the  year  to  make 
all  meet ;  and  much  ado  we  used  to  have  every 
thirty-first  night  of  December  to  account  for  our 
exceedings  ;  many  a  long  face  did  you  make  over 
your  puzzled  accounts,  and  in  contriving  to  make 
it  out  how  we  had  spent  so  much — or  that  we  had 
not  spent  so  much — or  that  it  was  impossible  we 
should  spend  so  much  next  year, — and  still  we 
found  our  slender  capital  decreasing  ;  but  then, — 
betwixt  ways  and  projects,  and  compromises  of 
one  sort  or  another,  and  talk  of  curtailing  this 
charge,  and  doing  without  that  for  the  future, — 
and  the  hope  that  youth  brings,  and  laughing 
spirits  (in  which  you  were  never  poor  till  now), 
we  pocketed  up  our  loss,  and  in  conclusion,  with 
*  lusty  brimmers  '  (as  you  used  to  quote  it  out  of 
hearty  cheerful  Mr.  Cotton,  as  you  called  him),  we 
used  to  welcome  in  the  *  coming  guest.'  Now  we 
have  no  reckoning  at  all  at  the  end  of  the  old  year, 
— no  flattering  promises  about  the  new  year  doing 
better  for  us.'' 

Bridget  is  so  sparing  of  her  speech  on  most 
occasions,  that  when  she  gets  into  a  rhetorical 
vein,  I  am  careful  how  I  interrupt  it.  I  could 
not  help,  however,  smiling  at  the  phantom  of 
wealth  which  her  dear  imagination  had  conjured 

up  out  of  the  clear  income  of  poor hundred 

pounds  a  year.  "It  is  true,  we  were  happier 
when  we  were  poorer,  but  we  were  also  younger, 
my  cousin.  I  am  afraid  we  must  put  up  with  the 
excess,  for  if  we  were  to  shake  the  superflux  into 
the  sea,  we  should  not  much  mend  ourselves. 
That  we  had  much  to  struggle  with  as  we  grew 
up  together,  we  have  reason  to  be  most  thankful. 
It  strengthened  and  knit  our  compact  closer.     We 


442  lEBsa^B  Of  I6lia» 

could  never  have  been  what  we  have  been  to 
each  other  if  we  had  always  had  the  sufficiency 
which  you  now  complain  of.  The  resisting 
power, — those  natural  dilations  of  the  youthful 
spirit,  which  circumstances  cannot  straiten, — 
with  us  are  long  since  passed  away.  Competence 
to  age  is  supplementary  youth  ;  a  sorry  supple- 
ment, indeed,  but  I  fear  the  best  that  is  to  be  had. 
We  must  ride  where  we  formerly  walked ;  live 
better  and  lie  softer — and  shall  be  wise  to  do  so — 
than  we  had  means  to  do  in  those  good  old  days 
you  speak  of.  Yet  could  those  days  return, — • 
could  you  and  I  once  more  walk  our  thirty  miles 
a  day, — could  Bannister  and  Mrs.  Bland  again 
be  young,  and  you  and  I  be  young  to  see  them, 
— could  the  good  old  one-shilling  gallery  days  re- 
turn,— they  are  dreams,  my  cousin  now, — but 
could  you  and  I  at  this  moment,  instead  of  this 
quiet  argument,  by  our  well-carpeted  fireside,  sit- 
ting on  this  luxurious  sofa,  be  once  more  strug- 
gling up  those  inconvenient  staircases,  pushed 
about,  and  squeezed,  and  elbowed  by  the  poorest 
rabble  of  poor  gallery  scramblers, — could  I  once 
more  hear  those  anxious  shrieks  of  yours, — and 
the  delicious  Tliajik  God,  ive  are  safe,  which 
always  followed  when  the  topmost  stair,  con- 
quered, let  in  the  first  light  of  the  whole  cheerful 
theatre  down  beneath  us, — I  know  not  the 
fathom  line  that  ever  touched  a  descent  so  deep  as 
I  would  be  willing  to  bury  more  w^ealth  in  than 

Croesus  had,  or  the  great  Jew  R is  supposed 

to  have,  to  purchase  it.  And  now,  do  just  look 
at  that  merry  little  Chinese  waiter  holding  an 
umbrella,  big  enough  for  a  bed-tester,  over  the 
head  of  that  pretty,  insipid,  half  Madonna-ish  chit 
of  a  lady  in  that  very  blue  summer-house." 


THE  CHILD  ANGEL;  A  DREAM. 


'  I  CHANCED  upon  the  prettiest,  oddest  fantastical 
thing  of  a  dream  the  other  night  that  you  shall 
hear  of.  I  had  been  reading  the  "  Loves  of  the 
Angels,  "and  went  to  bed  with  my  head  full  of  spec- 
ulations, suggested  by  that  extraordinary  legend. 
It  had  given  birth  to  innumerable  conjectures  ; 
and  I  remember  the  last  waking  thought  which 
I  gave  expression  to  on  my  pillow  was  a  sort  of 
wonder  "what  could  come  of  it." 

I  was  suddenly  transported,  how  or  whither  I 
could  scarcely  make  out — but  to  some  celestial 
region.  It  was  not  the  real  heavens  neither — not 
the  downright  Bible  heaven — but  a  kind  of  fairy- 
land heaven,  about  which  a  poor  human  fancy 
may  have  leave  to  sport  and  air  itself,  I  will  hope, 
without  presumption. 

Methought — what  wild  things  dreams  are  ! — 
I  was  present — at  what  would  you  imagine .'' — at 
an  angel's  gossiping. 

Whence  it  came,  or  how  it  came,  or  who  bid 
it  come,  or  whether  it  came  purely  of  its  own 
head,  neither  you  nor  I  know  ;  but  there  lay,  sure 
enough,  wrapped  in  its  little  cloudy  swaddling- 
bands,  A  Child  Angel. 

Sun-threads — filmy  beams — ran  through  the 
celestial    napery   of  what   seemed   its     princely 

443 


444  JSssa^Q  of  Bi(a. 

cradle.  All  the  winged  orders  hovered  around, 
watching  when  the  new-born  should  open  its  yet 
closed  eyes  ;  which,  when  it  did,  first  one  and 
then  the  other, — with  a  solicitude  and  apprehen- 
sion, yet  not  such  as,  stained  with  fear,  dim  the 
expanding  eyelids  of  mortal  infants,  but  as  if  to 
explore  its  path  in  those  its  unhereditary  palaces, 
— what  an  inextinguishable  titter  that  time  spared 
not  celestial  visages  !  Nor  wanted  there  to  my 
seeming, — oh,  the  inexplicable  simpleness  of 
dreams  !    bowls  of  that  cheering  nectar, 

— which  mortals  caudle  call  below. 

Nor  were  wanting  faces  of  female  ministrants, — 
stricken  in  years,  as  it  might  seem, — so  dexterous 
were  those  heavenly  attendants  to  counterfeit 
kindly  similitudes  of  earth,  to  greet,  with  terres- 
trial child-rites  the  young  present,  which  earth  had 
made  to  heaven. 

Then  were  celestial  harpings  heard,  not  in  full 
symphony  as  those  by  which  the  spheres  are 
tutored ;  but,  as  loudest  instruments  on  earth 
speak  oftentimes,  muffled ;  so  to  accommodate 
their  sound  the  better  to  the  weak  ears  of  the 
imperfect-born.  And,  with  the  noise  of  those 
subdued  soundings,  the  Angelet  sprang  forth, 
fluttering  its  rudiments  of  pinions,  but  forthwith 
flagged  and  was  recovered  into  the  arms  of  those 
full-winged  angels.  And  a  wonder  it  was  to  see 
how,  as  years  went  round  in  heaven — a  year  in 
dreams  is  as  a  day — continually  its  white  shoul- 
ders put  forth  buds  of  wings,  but  wanting  the 
perfect  angelic  nutriment,  anon  was  shorn  of  its 
aspiring,     and    fell    fluttering,  — still    caught    by 


Zbc  CbllD  Bneel ;  B  IDream.  445 

angel  hands, — forever  to  put  forth  shoots,  and  to 
fall  fluttering,  because  its  birth  was  not  of  the 
unmixed  vigor  of  heaven. 

And  a  name  was  given  to  the  Babe  Angel,  and 
it  was  to  be  called  Ge-Urania,  because  its  pro- 
duction was  of  earth  and  heaven. 

And  it  could  not  taste  of  death,  by  reason  of  its 
adoption  into  immortal  palaces  ;  but  it  was  to 
know  weakness  and  reliance  and  the  shadow  of 
human  imbecility  ;  and  it  went  with  a  lame  gait, 
but  in  its  goings  it  exceeded  all  mortal  children 
in  grace  and  swiftness.  Then  pity  first  sprang 
up  in  angelic  bosoms,  and  yearnings  (like  the 
human)  touched  them  at  the  sight  of  the  immor- 
tal  lame  one. 

And  with  pain  did  then  first  those  Intuitive 
Essences,  with  pain  and  strife,  to  their  natures 
(not  grief,),  put  back  their  bright  intelligences, 
and  reduce  their  ethereal  minds,  schooling  them 
to  degrees  and  slower  processes,  so  to  adapt 
their  lessons  to  the  gradual  illumination  (as  must 
needs  be)  of  the  half-earth  born  ;  and  what  intui- 
tive notices  they  could  not  repel  (by  reason  that 
their  nature  is  to  know  all  things  at  once),  the  half- 
heavenly  novice,  by  the  better  part  of  its  nature, 
aspired  to  receive  into  its  understanding;  so  that 
Humility  and  Aspiration  went  on  even  paced  in 
the  instruction  of  the  glorious  Amphibium. 

But,  by  reason  that  Mature  Humanity  is  too 
gross  to  breathe  the  air  of  that  super-subtile  re- 
gion, its  portion  was,  and  is,  to  be  a  child  forever. 

And  because  the  human  part  of  it  might  not 
press  into  the  heart  and  inwards  of  the  palace  of 
its  adoption,  those  full-natured  angels  tended  it 
by  turns  in  the  purlieus  of  the  palace,  where  were 


446  Essays  ot  jeiia. 

shady  groves  and  rivulets,  like  this  green  earth 
from  which  it  came  ;  so  love,  with  Voluntary 
Humility,  waited  upon  the  entertainment  of  the 
new-adopted. 

And  myriads  of  years  rolled  round  (in  dreams 
time  is  nothing),  and  still  it  kept,  and  is  to  keep, 
perpetual  childhood,  and  is  the  Tutelar  Genius  of 
Childhood  upon  earth,  and  still  goes  lame  and 
lovely. 

By  the  banks  of  the  river  Pison  is  seen,  lone 
sitting  by  the  grave  of  the  terrestrial  Adah,  whom 
the  angel  Nadir  loved,  a  Child,  but  not  the  same 
which  I  saw  in  heaven.  A  mournful  hue  over- 
casts its  lineaments  ;  nevertheless,  a  correspond- 
ency is  between  the  child  by  the  grave  and  the 
celestial  orphan  whom  I  saw  above  ;  and  the  dim- 
ness of  the  grief  upon  the  heavenly  is  a  shadow 
or  emblem  of  that  which  stains  the  beauty  of  the 
terrestrial.  And  this  correspondency  is  not  to  be 
understood  but  by  dreams. 

And  in  the  archives  of  heaven  I  had  grace  to 
read,  how  that  once  the  angel  Nadir,  being  exiled 
from  his  place  for  mortal  passion,  upspringing 
on  the  wings  of  parental  love  (such  power  had 
parental  love  for  a  moment  to  suspend  the  else- 
irrevocable  law),  appeared  for  a  brief  instant  in 
his  station,  and,  depositing  a  wondrous  Birth, 
straightway  disappeared,  and  the  palaces  knew 
him  no  more.  And  this  charge  was  the  selfsame 
Babe,  who  goeth  lame  and  lovely, — but  Adah 
sleepeth  by  the  river  Pison, 


CONFESSIONS  OF  A  DRUNKARD. 


Dehortations  from  the  use  of  strong-  liquors 
have  been  the  favorite  topic  of  sober  declaimers 
in  all  ages,  and  have  been  received  with  abun- 
dance of  applause  by  water-drinking  critics. 
But  with  the  patient  himself,  the  man  that  is  to 
be  cured,  unfortunately  their  sound  has  seldom 
prevailed.  Yet  the  evil  is  acknowledged,  the 
remedy  is  simple.  Abstain.  No  force  can  oblige 
a  man  to  raise  the  glass  to  his  head  against  his 
will.  'T  is  as  easy  as  not  to  steal,  not  to  tell 
lies. 

Alas  !  the  hand  to  pilfer,  and  the  tongue  to  bear 
false  witness,  have  no  constitutional  tendency. 
These  are  actions  indifferent  to  them.  At  the  first 
mstance  of  the  reformed  will,  they  can  be  brought 
off  without  a  murmur.  The  itching  finger  is  but  a 
figure  in  speech,  and  the  tongue  of  the  liar  can 
with  the  same  natural  delight  give  forth  useful 
truths  with  which  it  has  been  accustomed  to 
scatter  their  pernicious  contraries.  But  when  a 
man  has  commenced  sot 

O  pause,  thou  sturdy  moralist,  thou  person  of 
stout  nerves  and  a  strong  head,  whose  liver  is 
happily  untouched,  and  ere  thy  gorge  riseth  at 
the  ?iame  which  I  have  written,  first  learn  what 
the  llmig  is  ;  how  much  of  compassion,  how  much 

447. 


448  JE3B^^5  Of  Blla. 

of  human  allowance,  thou  mayest  virtuously  min- 
gle with  thy  disapprobation.  Trample  not  on 
the  ruins  of  a  man.  Exact  not,  under  so  terrible 
a  penalty  as  infamy,  a  resuscitation  from  a  state 
of  death  almost  as  real  as  that  from  which  Lazarus 
rose  not  but  by  a  miracle. 

Begin  a  reformation,  and  custom  will  make  it 
easy.  But  what  if  the  beginning  be  dreadful,  the 
first  steps  not  like  climbing  a  mountain  but  going 
through  fire?  what  if  the  whole  system  must  un- 
dergo a  change  violent  as  that  which  we  conceive 
of  the  mutation  of  form  in  some  insects  ?  what  if 
a  process  comparable  to  flaying  alive  be  to  be 
gone  through  ?  is  the  weakness  that  sinks  under 
such  struggles  to  be  confounded  with  the  perti- 
nacity which  clings  to  other  vices,  which  have 
induced  no  constitutional  necessity,  no  engage- 
ment of  the  whole  victim,  body  and  soul.? 

I  have  known  one  in  that  state,  when  he  has 
tried  to  abstain  but  for  one  evening, — though  the 
poisonous  potion  had  long  ceased  to  bring  back 
its  first  enchantments,  though  he  was  sure  it 
would  rather  deepen  his  gloom  than  brighten  it, — 
in  the  violence  of  the  struggle,  and  the  necessity 
he  has  felt  of  getting  rid  of  the  present  sensation 
at  any  rate,  I  have  known  him  to  scream  out,  to 
cry  aloud,  for  the  anguish  and  pain  of  the  strife 
within  him. 

Why  should  I  hesitate  to  declare  that  the  man 
of  whom  I  speak  is  myself  .!*  I  have  no  puling 
apology  to  make  to  mankind.  I  see  them  all  in 
one  way  or  another  deviating  from  the  pure 
reason.  It  is  to  my  own  nature  alone  I  am 
accountable  for  the  woe  that  I  have  brought 
upon  it. 


Contcasions  ot  a  2)runftar&, 


449 


I  believe  that  there  are  constitutions,  robust 
heads,  and  iron  insides,  whom  scarce  any  excesses 
can  hurt ;  whom  brandy  (I  have  seen  them  drink 
it  like  wine),  at  all  events  whom  wine,  taken  in 
ever  so  plentiful  a  measure,  can  do  no  worse 
injury  to  than  just  to  muddle  their  faculties,  per- 
haps never  very  pellucid.  On  them  this  discourse 
is  wasted.  They  would  but  laugh  at  a  weak 
brother,  who  trying  his  strength  with  them,  and 
coming  off  foiled  from  the  contest,  would  fain 
persuade  them  that  such  agonistic  exercises  are 
dangerous.  It  is  to  a  very  different  description 
of  persons  I  speak.  It  is  to  the  weak,  the  nervous  ; 
to  those  who  feel  the  want  of  some  artificial  aid 
to  raise  their  spirits  in  society  to  what  is  no  more 
than  the  ordinary  pitch  of  all  around  them  with- 
out it.  This  is  the  secret  of  our  drinking.  Such 
must  fly  the  convivial  board  in  the  first  instance, 
if  they  do  not  mean  to  sell  themselves  for  a  term 
of  life. 

Twelve  years  ago  I  had  completed  my  six-and- 
tvventieth  year.  I  had  lived  from  the  period  of 
leaving  school  at  that  time  pretty  much  in  soli- 
tude. IVIy  companions  were  chiefly  books,  or  at 
most  one  or  two  living  ones,  of  my  own  book- 
loving  and  sober  stamp.  I  rose  early,  went  to 
bed  betimes,  and  the  faculties  which  God  had 
given  me,  I  have  reason  to  think,  did  not  rust  in 
me  unused. 

About  that  time  I  fell  in  with  some  companions 
of  a  different  order.  They  were  men  of  boisterous 
spirits,  sitters  up  a-nights,  disputants,  drunken  ; 
yet  seemed  to  have  something  noble  about  them. 
We  dealt  about  the  wit,  or  what  passes  for  it  after 
midnight,  jovially.  Of  the  quality  called  fane/  I 
29 


45 o  Essays  of  Blta. 

certainly  possessed  a  larger  share  than  my  com- 
panions. Encouraged  by  their  applause,  I  set  up 
for  a  professed  joker  !  I,  who  of  all  men  am 
least  fitted  for  such  an  occupation,  having,  in 
addition  to  the  greatest  difficulty  which  I  experi- 
ence at  all  times  of  finding  words  to  express  any 
meaning,  a  natural  nervous  impediment  in  my 
speech  ! 

Reader,  if  you  are  gifted  with  nerves  like  mine, 
aspire  to  any  character  but  that  of  a  wit.  When 
you  find  a  tickling  relish  upon  your  tongue  dis- 
posing you  to  that  sort  of  conversation,  especially 
if  you  find  a  preternatural  flow  of  ideas  setting  in 
upon  you  at  the  sight  of  a  bottle  and  fresh  glasses, 
avoid  giving  way  to  it  as  you  would  fly  your 
greatest  destruction.  If  you  cannot  crush  the 
power  of  fancy,  or  that  within  you  which  you 
mistake  for  such,  divert  it,  give  it  some  other 
play.  Write  an  essay,  pen  a  character  or  descrip- 
tion,— but  not  as  I  do  now,  with  tears  trickling 
down  your  cheeks. 

To  be  an  object  of  compassion  to  friends,  of 
derision  to  foes  ;  to  be  suspected  by  strangers, 
stared  at  by  fools  ;  to  be  esteemed  dull  when  you 
cannot  be  witty,  to  be  applauded  for  witty  when 
you  know  that  you  have  been  dull ;  to  be  called 
upon  for  extemporaneous  exercise  of  that  faculty 
which  no  premeditation  can  give  ;  to  be  spurred 
on  to  efforts  which  end  in  contempt ;  to  be  set  on 
to  provoke  mirth  which  procures  the  procurer 
hatred  ;  to  give  pleasure  and  be  paid  with  squint- 
ing malice  ;  to  swallow  draughts  of  life-destroying 
wine,  which  are  to  be  distilled  into  airy  breath  to 
tickle  vain  auditors  ;  to  mortgage  miserable  mor- 
rows for  nights  of  madness  ;  to  waste  whole  seas 


Confessions  of  a  2)runftarD.  451 

of  time  upon  those  who  pay  it  back  in  little  incon- 
siderable drops  of  grudging-  applause, — are  the 
wages  of  buffoonery  and  death. 

Time,  which  has  a  sure  stroke  of  dissolving  all 
connections  which  have  no  solider  fastening  than 
this  liquid  cement,  more  kind  to  me  than  my  own 
taste  or  penetration,  at  length  opened  my  eyes  to 
the  supposed  qualities  of  my  first  friends.  No 
trace  of  them  is  left  but  in  the  vices  which  they 
introduced,  and  the  habits  they  infixed.  In  them 
my  friends  survive  still,  and  exercise  ample  retri- 
bution for  any  supposed  infidelity  that  I  may  have 
been  guilty  of  towards  them. 

My  next  more  immediate  companions  were 
and  are  persons  of  such  intrinsic  and  felt  worth, 
that,  though  accidentally,  their  acquaintance  has 
proved  pernicious  to  me,  I  do  not  know  that  if 
the  thing  were  to  do  over  again,  I  should  have 
the  courage  to  eschew  the  mischief  at  the  price 
of  forfeiting  the  benefit.  I  came  to  them  reeking 
from  the  steams  of  my  late  overheated  notion  of 
companionship ;  and  the  slightest  fuel  which  they 
unconsciously  afforded,  was  sufficient  to  feed  my 
old  fires  into  a  propensity. 

They  were  no  drinkers,  but,  one  from  profes- 
sional habits,  and  another  from  a  custom  derived 
from  his  father,  smoked  tobacco.  The  devil  could 
not  have  devised  a  more  subtle  trap  to  retake  a 
backsliding  penitent.  The  transition  from  gulp- 
ing down  draughts  of  liquid  fire  to  puffing  out  in- 
nocuous blasts  of  dry  smoke,  was  so  like  cheating 
him.  But  he  is  too  hard  for  us  when  we  hope  to 
commute.  He  beats  us  at  barter ;  and  when  we 
think  to  set  off  a  new  failing  against  an  old  in- 
firmity, 't  is  odds  but  he  puts  the  trick  upon  us  of 


452  ^6553125  Of  jeiia. 

two  for  one.  That  (comparatively)  white  devil 
of  tobacco  brought  with  him  in  the  end  seven 
worse  than  himself 

It  were  impertinent  to  carry  the  reader  through 
all  the  processes  by  which,  from  smoking  at  first 
with  malt  liquor,  I  took  my  degrees  through  thin 
wines,  through  stronger  wine  and  water,  through 
small  punch,  to  those  juggling  compositions, 
which,  under  the  name  of  mixed  liquors,  slur  a 
great  deal  of  brandy  or  other  poison  under  less 
and  less  water  continually,  until  they  come  next 
to  none,  and  so  to  none  at  all.  But  it  is  hateful 
to  disclose  the  secrets  of  my  Tartarus. 

I  should  repel  my  readers,  from  a  mere  inca- 
pacity of  believing  me,  were  I  to  tell  them  what 
tobacco  has  been  to  me,  the  drudging  service 
which  I  have  paid,  the  slavery  which  I  have 
vowed  to  it.  How,  when  I  have  resolved  to  quit 
it,  a  feeling  as  of  ingratitude  has  started  up  ;  how 
it  has  put  on  personal  claims  and  made  the  de- 
mands of  a  friend  upon  me.  How  the  reading  of 
it  casually  in  a  book,  as  where  Adams  takes  his 
whiff  in  the  chimney-corner  of  some  inn  in 
"Joseph  Andrews,"  or  Piscator  in  the  "Complete 
Angler  "  breaks  his  fast  upon  a  morning  pipe  in 
that  delicate  room  Piscatorihiis  Sacniin,  has  in  a 
moment  broken  down  the  resistance  of  weeks. 
How  a  pipe  was  ever  in  my  midnight  path  be- 
fore me,  till  the  vision  forced  me  to  realize  it, — 
how  then  its  ascending  vapors  curled,  its  fra- 
grance lulled,  and  the  thousand  delicious  minister- 
ings  conversant  about  it,  employing  every  faculty, 
extracted  the  sense  of  pain.  How  from  illumi- 
nating it  came  to  darken,  from  a  quick  solace  it 
turned  to  a  negative  relief,  thence  to  a  restless- 


QontcBBiorxB  ot  a  BrunftacD,  453 

ness  and  dissatisfaction,  thence  to  a  positive  mis- 
ery. How,  even  now,  when  the  whole  secret 
stands  confessed  in  all  its  dreadful  truth  before 
me,  I  feel  myself  linked  to  it  beyond  the  power 
of  revocation.      Bone  of  my  bone 

Persons  not  accustomed  to  examine  the  motives 
of  their  actions,  to  reckon  up  the  countless  nails 
that  rivet  the  chains  of  habit,  or  perhaps  being 
bound  by  none  so  obdurate  as  those  I  have  con- 
fessed to,  may  recoil  from  this  as  from  an  over- 
charged picture.  But  what  short  of  such  a  bond- 
age is  it,  which  in  spite  of  protesting  friends,  a 
weeping  wife,  and  a  reprobating  world,  chains 
down  many  a  poor  fellow,  of  no  original  indispo- 
sition to  goodness,  to  his  pipe  and  his  pot  ? 

I  have  seen  a  print  after  Correggio,  in  which 
three  female  figures  are  ministering  to  a  man  who 
sits  fast  bound  at  the  root  of  a  tree.  Sensuality 
is  soothing  him,  Evil  Habit  is  nailing  him  to  a 
branch,  and  Repugnance  at  the  same  instant  of 
time  is  applying  a  snake  to  his  side.  In  his  face 
is  feeble  delight,  the  recollection  of  past  rather 
than  perception  of  present  pleasures,  languid  en- 
joyment of  evil  w^ith  utter  imbecility  to  good,  a 
Sybaritic  effeminacy,  a  submission  to  bondage, 
the  springs  of  the  will  gone  down  like  a  broken 
clock,  the  sin  and  the  suffering  co-instantaneous, 
or  the  latter  forerunning  the  former,  remorse  pre- 
ceding, action — all  this  represented  in  one  point  of 
time.  When  I  saw  this,  I  admired  the  wonderful 
skill  of  the  painter.  But  when  I  went  away,  I 
wept,  because  I  thought  of  my  own  condition. 

Of  /ha/  there  is  no  hope  that  it  should  ever 
change.  The  waters  have  gone  over  me.  But 
out  of  the  black  depths,  could  I  be  heard,  I  would 


454  message  of  Blia. 

cry  out  to  all  those  who  have  but  set  a  foot  in  the 
perilous  flood.  Could  the  youth,  to  whom  the 
flavor  of  his  first  wine  is  delicious  as  the  opening 
scenes  of  life  or  the  entering  upon  some  newly 
discovered  paradise,  look  into  my  desolation,  and 
be  made  to  understand  what  a  dreary  thing  it  is 
when  a  man  shall  feel  himself  going  down  a  prec- 
ipice with  open  eyes  and  a  passive  will, — to  see 
his  destruction  and  have  no  power  to  stop  it,  and 
yet  to  feel  it  all  the  way  emanating  from  himself; 
to  perceive  all  goodness  emptied  out  of  him,  and 
yet  not  to  be  able  to  forget  a  time  when  it  was 
otherwise  ;  to  bear  about  the  piteous  spectacle  of 
his  own  self-ruin  ; — could  he  see  my  fevered  eye, 
feverish  with  last  night's  drinking,  and  feverishly 
looking  for  this  night's  repetition  of  the  folly  ; 
could  he  feel  the  body  of  the  death  out  of  which 
I  cry  hourly  with  feebler  and  feebler  outcry  to  be 
delivered, — it  were  enough  to  make  him  dash  the 
sparkling  beverage  to  the  earth  in  all  the  pride  of 
its  mantling  temptation  ;  to  make  him  clasp  his 
teeth, 

and  not  undo  'em 
To  suffer  wet  damnation  to  run  thro'  'em. 

Yea,  but  (methinks  I  hear  somebody  object)  if 
sobriety  be  that  fine  thing  you  would  have  us  to 
understand,  if  the  comforts  of  a  cool  brain  are  to 
be  preferred  to  that  state  of  heated  excitement 
which  you  describe  and  deplore,  what  hinders  in 
your  instance  that  you  do  not  return  to  those 
habits  from  which  you  would  induce  others  never 
to  swerve  ?  if  the  blessing  be  worth  preserving,  is 
it  not  worth  recovering? 

Recovering  P     Oh,  if  a  wish  could  transport  me 


Conteasions  ot  a  DrunftacD.  455 

back  to  those  days  of  youth,  when  a  draught  from 
the  next  clear  spring  could  slake  any  heats  which 
summer  suns  and  youthful  exercise  had  power  to 
stir  up  in  the  blood,  how  gladly  would  I  return 
to  thee,  pure  element,  the  drink  of  children  and 
of  childlike  holy  hermit !  In  my  dreams  I  can 
sometimes  fancy  thy  cool  refreshment  purling 
over  my  burning  tongue.  But  my  waking  stomach 
rejects  it.  That  which  refreshes  innocence  only 
makes  me  sick  and  faint. 

But  is  there  no  middle  way  betwixt  total  absti- 
nence and  the  excess  which  kills  you  ?  For  your 
sake,  reader,  and  that  you  may  never  attain  to 
my  experience,  with  pain  I  must  utter  the  dread- 
ful truth,  that  there  is  none, — none  that  I  can 
find.  In  my  stage  of  habit  (I  speak  not  of  habits 
less  confirmed — for  some  of  them  I  believe  the 
advice  to  be  most  prudential),  in  the  stage  which 
I  have  reached,  to  stop  short  of  that  measure 
which  is  sufficient  to  draw  on  torpor  and  sleep, 
the  benumbing  apoplectic  sleep  of  the  drunkard, 
is  to  have  taken  none  at  all.  The  pain  of  the 
self-denial  is  all  one.  And  what  that  is,  I  had 
rather  the  reader  should  believe  on  my  credit, 
than  know  from  his  own  trial.  He  will  come  to 
know  it  whenever  he  shall  arrive  in  that  state,  in 
which,  paradoxical  as  it  may  appear,  reason  shall 
only  visit  Jmn  through  intoxication  ;  for  it  is  a  fear- 
ful truth,  that  the  intellectual  faculties  by  repeated 
acts  of  intemperance  may  be  driven  from  their 
orderly  sphere  of  action,  their  clear  daylight  min- 
istries, until  they  shall  be  brought  at  last  to 
depend,  for  the  faint  manifestation  of  their  depart- 
ing energies,  upon  the  returning  periods  of  the 
fatal  madness  to  which  they  owe  their  devastation. 


456  16653^3  Of  Blfa. 

The  drinking  man  is  never  less  himself  than 
during  his  sober  intervals.  Evil  is  so  far  his 
good.  * 

Behold  me,  then,  in  the  robust  period  of  life, 
reduced  to  imbecility  and  decay.  Hear  me  count 
my  gains,  and  the  profits  which  I  have  derived 
from  the  midnight  cup. 

Twelve  years  ago,  I  was  possessed  of  a  healthy 
frame  of  mind  and  body.  I  was  never  strong, 
but  I  think  my  constitution  (for  a  weak  one)  was 
as  happily  exempt  from  the  tendency  to  any  mal- 
ady as  it  was  possible  to  be.  I  scarce  knew  what 
it  was  to  ail  any  thing.  Now,  except  when  I  am 
losing  myself  in  a  sea  of  drink,  I  am  never  free 
from  those  uneasy  sensations  in  head  and  stomach, 
which  are  so  much  worse  to  bear  than  any  definite 
pains  or  aches. 

At  that  time  I  was  seldom  in  bed  after  six  in 
the  morning,  summer  and  winter.  I  awoke  re- 
freshed, and  seldom  without  some  merry  thoughts 
in  my  head,  or  some  piece  of  a  song  to  welcome 
the  new-born  day.  Now,  the  first  feeling  which 
besets  me,  after  stretching  out  the  hours  ofrecum- 
brance  to  their  last  possible  extent,  is  a  forecast 
of  the  wearisome  day  that  lies  before  me,  with  a 
secret  wish  that  I  could  have  lain  on  still,  or  never 
awaked. 

Life  itself,  my  waking  life,  has  much  of  the 
confusion,  the  trouble,  and  obscure  perplexity,  of 

*  When  poor  M painted  his  last  picture,  with  a  pencil 

in  one  trembling  hand,  and  a  glass  of  brandy  and  water  in  the 
other,  his  fingers  owed  the  comparative  steadiness  with  which 
they  were  enabled  to  go  through  their  task  in  an  imperfect 
manner,  to  a  temporary  firmness  derived  from  a  repetition  of 
practices,  the  general  effect  of  which  had  shaken  both  them 
and  him  so  terribly. 


Confessions  ot  a  BrunftarD,  457 

an  ill  dream.  In  the  daytime  I  stumble  upon  dark 
mountains. 

Business,  which,  though  never  very  particularly- 
adapted  to  my  nature,  yet  as  something  of  neces- 
sity to  be  gone  through,  and  therefore  best  under- 
taken with  cheerfulness,  I  used  to  enter  upon  with 
some  degree  of  alacrity,  now  wearies,  affrights, 
perplexes  me.  I  fancy  all  sorts  of  discourage- 
ments, and  am  ready  to  give  up  an  occupation 
which  gives  me  bread,  from  a  harassing  conceit 
of  incapacity.  The  slightest  commission  given 
me  by  a  friend,  or  any  small  duty  which  I  have 
to  perform  for  myself,  as  giving  orders  to  trades- 
men, etc.,  haunts  me  as  a  labor  impossible  to  get 
through.  So  much  the  springs  of  action  are 
broken. 

The  same  cowardice  attends  me  in  all  my  in- 
tercourse with  mankind.  I  dare  not  promise  that 
a  friend's  honor,  or  his  cause,  would  be  safe  in 
my  keeping,  if  I  were  put  to  the  expense  of  any 
manly  resolution  in  defending  it.  So  much  the 
springs  of  moral  action  are  deadened  within  me. 

My  favorite  occupations  in  times  past  now  cease 
to  entertain.  I  can  do  nothing  readily.  Appli- 
cation for  ever  so  short  a  time  kills  me.  This 
poor  abstract  of  my  condition  was  penned  at  long 
intervals,  with  scarcely  any  attempt  in  connection 
of  thought,  which  is  now  difficult  to  me. 

The  noble  passages  which  formerly  delighted 
me  in  history  or  poetic  fiction,  now  only  draw 
a  few  weak  tears,  allied  to  dotage.  My  broken 
and  dispirited  nature  seems  to  sink  before  any 
thing  great  and  admirable. 

I  perpetually  catch  myself  in  tears,  for  any 
cause,   or  none.      It  is  inexpressible  how  much 


458  Bssass  ot  JElia. 

this  infirmity  adds  to  a  sense  of  shame,  and  a 
general  feeling  of  deterioration. 

These  are  some  of  the  instances,  concerning 
which  I  can  say  with  truth,  that  it  was  not  always 
so  with  me. 

Shall  I  lift  up  the  veil  of  my  weakness  any 
further  ?  or  is  the  disclosure  sufficient  ? 

I  am  a  poor,  nameless  egotist,  who  have  no 
vanity  to  consult  by  these  Confessions.  I  know 
not  whether  I  shall  be  laughed  at,  or  heard  seri- 
ously. Such  as  they  are  I  commend  them  to  the 
reader's  attention,  if  he  found  his  own  case  any 
way  touched  I  have  told  him  what  I  have  come 
to.     Let  him  stop  in  time. 


POPULAR  FALLACIES. 
I. 

THAT   A    BULLY   IS   ALWAYS   A   COWARD. 


This  axiom  contains  a  principle  of  the  com- 
pensation which  disposes  us  to  admit  the  truth  of 
it.  But  there  is  no  safe  trusting  to  dictionaries 
and  definitions.  We  should  more  willingly  fall 
in  with  this  popular  language  if  we  did  not  find 
brutality  sometimes  awkwardly  coupled  with  valor 
in  the  same  vocabulary.  The  comic  writers,  with 
their  poetical  justice,  have  contributed  not  a  little 
to  mislead  us  upon  this  point.  To  see  a  hector- 
ing fellow  exposed  and  beaten  upon  the  stage  has 
something  in  it  wonderfully  diverting.  Some 
people's  share  of  animal  spirits  is  notoriously  low 
and  defective.  It  has  not  strength  to  raise  a  vapor, 
or  furnish  out  the  wind  of  a  tolerable  bluster. 
They  love  to  be  told  that  huffing  is  no  part  of 
valor.  The  truest  courage  with  them  is  that  which 
is  the  least  noisy  and  obtrusive.  But  confront 
one  of  these  silent  heroes  with  the  swaggerer  of 
life,  and  his  confidence  in  the  theory  quickly 
vanishes.  Pretensions  do  not  uniformly  bespeak 
non-performance.  A  modest,  inoffensive  deport- 
ment does  not  necessarily  imply  valor  ;  neither 

459 


460  Besa^s  of  BKa. 

does  the  absence  of  it  justify  us  in  denying  that 
quality.  Hickman  wanted  modesty, — we  do  not 
mean  him  of  Clarissa, — but  who  ever  doubted  his 
courage  ?  Even  the  poets — upon  whom  this 
equitable  distribution  of  qualities  should  be  most 
binding — have  thought  it  agreeable  to  nature  to 
depart  from  the  rule  upon  occasion.  Harapha,  in 
the  '' Agonistes, "  is  indeed  a  bully  upon  the  re- 
ceived notions.  IMilton  has  made  him  at  once  a 
blusterer,  a  giant,  and  a  dastard.  But  Almanzor, 
in  Dryden,  talks  of  driving  armies  singly  before 
him — and  does  it.  Tom  Brown  had  a  shrewder 
insight  into  this  kind  of  character  than  either  of 
his  predecessors.  He  divides  the  palm  more 
equably,  and  allows  his  hero  a  sort  of  dimidiate 
preeminence  :  "  Bully  Dawson  kicked  by  half  the 
town  and  half  the  town  kicked  by  Bully  Dawson." 
This  was  true  distributive  justice. 


H. 

THAT  ILL-GOTTEN  GAIN  NEVER  PROSPERS. 

The  weakest  part  of  mankind  have  this  saying 
commonest  in  their  mouth.  It  is  the  trite  conso- 
lation administered  to  the  easy  dupe  when  he  has 
been  tricked  out  of  his  money  or  estate,  that  the 
acquisition  of  it  will  do  the  owner  ;zo^oc^/.  But  the 
rogues  of  this  world — the  prudenter  part  of  them, 
at  least — know  better,  and  if  the  observation  had 
been  as  true  as  it  is  old,  would  not  have  failed  by 
this  time  to  have  discovered  it.  They  have  pretty 
sharp  distinctions  of  the  fluctuating  and  the  perma- 
nent.     "Lightly  come,  lightly  go,"  is  a  proverb 


popular  3fallade0.  461 

which  they  can  very  well  afford  to  leave  when 
they  leave  little  else  to  the  losers.  They  do  not 
always  find  manners,  got  by  rapine  or  chicanery, 
insensible  to  melt  away,  as  the  poets  will  have  it ; 
or  that  all  gold  glides,  like  thawing  snow,  from 
the  thief's  hand  that  grasps  it.  Church  land, 
alienated  to  lay  uses,  was  formerly  denounced  to 
have  this  slippery  quality.  But  some  portion  of  it 
somehow  always  stuck  so  fast  that  the  denunci- 
ators have  been  fain  to  postpone  the  prophecy  of 
refundment  to  a  late  posterity. 


III. 

THAT  A  MAN  MUST  NOT  LAUGH  AT  HIS  OWN  JEST. 

The  severest  exaction  surely  ever  invented 
upon  the  self-denial  of  poor  human  nature  !  This 
is  to  expect  a  gentleman  to  give  a  treat  without 
partaking  of  it ;  to  sit  esurient  at  his  own  table 
and  commend  the  flavor  of  his  venison  upon  the 
absurd  strength  of  his  never  touching  it  himself. 
On  the  contrary,  we  love  to  see  a  wag  taste  his 
own  joke  to  his  party ;  to  watch  a  quirk  or  a 
merry  conceit  flickering  upon  the  lips  some 
seconds  before  the  tongue  is  delivered  of  it.  If  it 
be  good,  fresh,  and  racy — begotten  of  the  occa- 
sion ;  if  he  that  utters  it  never  thought  it  before, 
he  is  naturally  the  first  to  be  tickled  with  it,  and 
any  suppression  of  such  complacence  we  hold  to 
be  churhsh  and  insulting.  What  does  it  seem  to 
imply  but  that  your  company  is  weak  or  foolish 
enough  to  be  moved  by  an  image  or  a  fancy  that 
shall  stir  you  not  at  all,  or  but  faintly.     This  is 


462  jessags  of  jeiia. 

exactly  the  humor  of  the  fine  gentleman  in 
*' Mandeville,"  who,  while  he  dazzles  his  guests 
with  the  display  of  some  costly  toy,  affects  him- 
self to  "  see  nothing  considerable  in  it." 


IV. 


THAT   SUCH     A    ONE    SHOWS    HIS    BREEDING THAT    IT    IS 

EASY  TO  PERCEIVE  HE  IS  NO  GENTLEMAN. 

A  speech  from  the  poorest  sort  of  people,  which 
always  indicates  that  the  party  vituperated  is  a 
gentleman.  The  very  fact  which  they  deny  is 
that  which  galls  and  exasperates  them  to  use  this 
language.  The  forbearance  with  which  it  is 
usually  received  is  a  proof  what  interpretation  the 
bystander  sets  upon  it.  Of  a  kin  to  this,  and  still 
less  politic,  are  the  phrases  with  which,  in  their 
street  rhetoric,  they  ply  one  another  more  grossly  : 
He  is  a  poor  creature ;  he  has   not  a  rag  to  cover 

,"  etc.  ;  though  this  last,  we  confess,  is  more 

frequently  applied  by  females  to  females.  They 
do  not  perceive  that  the  satire  glances  upon  them- 
selves. A  poor  man,  of  all  the  things  in  the 
world,  should  not  upbraid  an  antagonist  with 
poverty.  Are  there  no  other  topics — as,  to  tell 
him  his  father  was  hanged  ;  his  sister,  etc., 
without  exposing  a  secret  which  should  be  kept 
snug  between  them,  and  doing  an  affront  to  the 
order  to  which  they  have  the  honor  equally  to 
belong?  All  this  while  they  do  not  see  how  the 
wealthier  man  stands  by  and  laughs  in  his  sleeve 
at  both. 


popular  fallacies.  463 

V. 

THAT  THE  POOR  COPY  THE  VICES  OF  THE  RICH. 

A  smooth  text  to  the  letter,  and,  preached  from 
the  pulpit,  is  sure  of  a  docile  audience  from  the 
pews  lined  with  satin.  It  is  twice  sitting  upon 
velvet  to  a  foolish  squire  to  be  told  that  he — and 
not  perverse  nature,  as  the  homilies  would  make 
us  imagine — is  the  true  cause  of  all  the  irregular- 
ities in  his  parish.  This  is  striking  at  the  root  of 
free-will  indeed,  and  denying  the  originality  of 
sin  in  any  sense.  But  men  are  not  such  implicit 
sheep  as  this  comes  to.  If  the  abstinence  from 
evil  on  the  part  of  the  upper  classes  is  to  derive 
itself  from  no  higher  principle  than  the  apprehen- 
sion of  setting  ill  patterns  to  the  lower,  we  beg 
leave  to  discharge  them  from  all  squeamishness 
on  that  score  ;  they  may  even  take  their  fill  of 
pleasures  where  they  can  find  them.  The  Genius 
of  Poverty,  hampered  and  straightened  as  it  is,  is 
not  so  barren  of  invention  but  it  can  trade  upon 
the  staple  of  its  own  vice  without  drawing  upon 
their  capital.  The  poor  are  not  quite  such  servile 
imitators  as  they  take  them  for.  Some  of  them 
are  very  clever  artists  in  their  way.  Here  and 
there  we  find  an  original.  Who  taught  the  poor 
to  steal,  to  pilfer }  They  did  not  go  to  the  great 
for  schoolmasters  in  these  faculties  surely.  It  is 
well  if  in  some  vices  they  allow  us  to  be — no 
copyists.  In  no  other  sense  is  it  true  that  the 
poor  copy  them,  than  as  servants  may  be  said  to 
take  after  their  masters  and  mistresses  when  they 
succeed  to   their  reversionary   cold   meats.      If 


464  JBsaass  of  Blta. 

the  master,  from  indisposition  or  some  other 
cause,  neglect  his  food,  the  servant  dines  notwith- 
standing. 

*'  Oh,  but  (some  will  say)  the  force  of  example 
is  great."  We  knew  a  lady  who  was  so  scrupu- 
lous on  this  head  that  she  would  put  up  with  the 
calls  of  the  most  impertinent  visitor  rather  than 
let  her  servant  say  she  was  not  at  home  for  fear 
of  teaching  her  maid  to  tell  an  untruth,  and  this 
in  the  very  face  of  the  fact,  which  she  knew  well 
enough,  that  the  wrench  was  one  of  the  greatest 
liars  upon  the  earth  without  teaching — so  much 
so,  that  her  mistress  possibly  never  heard  two 
words  of  consecutive  truth  from  her  in  her  life. 
But  nature  must  go  for  nothing  :  example  must  be 
every  thing.  This  liar  in  grain,  who  never  opened 
her  mouth  without  a  lie,  must  be  guarded  against 
a  remote  inference,  which  she  (pretty  casuist !) 
might  possibly  draw  from  a  form  of  words — liter- 
ally false,  but  essentially  deceiving  no  one — that 
under  some  circumstances  a  fib  might  not  be  so 
exceedingly  sinful — a  fiction,  too,  not  at  all  in 
her  own  way,  or  one  that  she  could  be  suspected 
of  adopting,  for  few  servant-wenches  care  to  be 
denied  to  visitors. 

This  word  example  reminds  us  of  another  fine 
word  which  is  in  use  upon  these  occasions — en- 
couragement. ''People  in  our  sphere  must  not 
be  thought  to  give  encouragement  to  such  pro- 
ceedings." To  such  a  frantic  height  is  this  prin- 
ciple capable  of  being  carried  that  we  have  known 
individuals  who  have  thought  it  within  the  scope 
of  their  influence  to  sanction  despair,  and  give 
iclai — to  suicide.  A  domestic  in  the  family  of  a 
county   member  lately  deceased,    from   love  or 


popular  fallacies.  465 

some  unknown  cause,  cut  his  throat,  but  not  suc- 
cessfully. The  poor  fellow  was  otherwise  much 
loved  and  respected,  and  great  interest  was  used 
in  his  behalf  upon  his  recovery  that  he  might  be 
permitted  to  retain  his  place ;  his  word  being  first 
pledged,  not  without  some  substantial  sponsors 
to  promise  for  him,  that  the  like  should  never 
happen  again.  His  master  was  inclinable  to  keep 
him,  but  his  mistress  thought  otherwise,  and  John 
in  the  end  was  dismissed,  her  ladyship  declaring 
that  she  "could  not  think  of  encouraging  any 
such  doings  in  the  county." 

VI. 

THAT    ENOUGH  IS  AS  GOOD  AS   A  FEAST, 

Not  a  man,  woman,  or  child  in  ten  miles  round 
Guildhall  who  really  believes  this  saying.  The 
inventor  of  it  did  not  believe  it  himself.  It  was 
made  in  revenge  by  somebody  who  was  disap- 
pointed of  a  regale.  It  is  a  vile  cold-scrag-of-mut- 
ton  sophism,  a  lie  palmed  upon  the  palate,  which 
knows  better  things.  If  nothing  else  could  be 
said  for  a  feast,  this  is  sufficient,  that  from  the  super- 
flux  there  is  usually  something  left  for  the  next 
day.  Morally  interpreted,  it  belongs  to  a  class  of 
proverbs  which  have  a  tendency  to  make  us  under- 
value 7no?iey.  Of  this  cast  are  those  notable  ob- 
servations that  money  is  not  health  ;  riches  cannot 
purchase  every  thing  :  the  metaphor  which  makes 
gold  to  be  mere  muck,  with  the  morality  which 
traces  fine  clothing  to  the  sheep's  back,  and  de- 
nounces pearl  as  the  unhandsome  excretion  of  an 
oyster.  Hence,  too,  the  phrase  which  imputes 
30 


466  £d6a^d  ot  :Clta. 

dirt  to  acres — a  sophistry  so  barefaced  that  even 
the  literal  sense  of  it  is  true  only  in  a  wet  season. 
This,  and  abundance  of  similar  sage  saws  assum- 
ing- to  inculcate  content,  we  verily  believe  to  have 
been  the  invention  of  some  cunning  borrower, 
who  had  designs  upon  the  purse  of  his  wealthier 
neighbor,  which  he  could  only  hope  to  carry  out 
by  force  of  these  verbal  jugglings.  Translate  any 
one  of  these  sayings  out  of  the  artful  metonymy 
which  envelops  it  and  the  trick  is  apparent. 
Goodly  legs  and  shoulders  of  mutton,  exhilarating 
cordials,  books,  pictures,  the  opportunities  of  see- 
ing foreign  countries,  independence,  heart's  ease, 
a  man's  own  time  to  himself,  are  not  tmick — how- 
ever we  may  be  pleased  to  scandalize  with  that 
appellation  the  faithful  metal  that  provides  them 
for  us. 

VII. 

OF  TWO  DISPUTANTS  THE  WARMER  IS  GENERALLY  IN  THE 
WRONG. 

Our  experience  would  lead  us  to  quite  an  op- 
posite conclusion.  Temper,  indeed,  is  no  test  of 
truth  ;  but  warmth  and  earnestness  are  a  proof  at 
least  of  a  man  s  own  conviction  of  the  rectitude 
of  that  which  he  maintains.  Coolness  is  as  often 
the  result  of  an  unprincipled  indifference  to  truth 
or  falsehood,  as  of  a  sober  confidence  in  a  man's 
own  side  in  a  dispute.  Nothing  is  more  insulting 
sometimes  than  the  appearance  of  this  philo- 
sophic temper.  There  is  little  Titubus,  the  stam- 
mering law-stationer  in  Lincoln's  Inn, — we  have 
seldom  known  this  shrewd  little  fellow  engaged 
in  an  arsfument  where  we  were  not  convinced  he 


popular  3PalIacfe0.  467 

had  the  best  of  it,  if  his  tongue  would  but  fairly 
have  seconded  him.  When  he  has  been  splutter- 
ing excellent  broken  sense  for  an  hour  together, 
writhing  and  laboring  to  be  delivered  of  the  point 
of  dispute, — the  very  gist  of  the  controversy 
knocking  at  his  teeth,  which  like  some  obstinate 
iron-grating  still  obstructed  its  deliverance, — his 
puny  frame  convulsed,  and  face  reddening  all  over 
at  an  unfairness  in  the  logic  which  he  wanted 
articulation  to  expose,  it  has  moved  our  gall  to 
see  a  smooth  portly  fellow  of  an  adversary,  that 
cared  not  a  button  for  the  merits  of  the  question, 
by  merely  laying  his  hand  upon  the  head  of  the 
stationer,  and  desiring  him  to  be  calm  (your  tall 
disputants  have  always  the  advantage,)  with  a 
provoking  sneer  carry  the  argument  clean  from 
him  in  the  opinion  of  all  the  bystanders,  who  have 
gone  away  clearly  convinced  that  Titubus  must 
have  been  in  the  wrong,  because  he  was  in  a  pas- 
sion ;  and  that  Mr.  ,  meaning  his  opponent, 

is  one  of  the  fairest  and  at  the  same  time  one  of 
the  most  dispassionate  arguers  breathing. 

VIII. 

THAT  VERBAL  ALLUSIONS  ARE  NOT  WIT,  BECAUSE  THEY 
WILL  NOT  BEAR  A  TRANSLATION. 

The  same  might  be  said  of  the  wittiest  local 
allusions.  A  custom  is  sometimes  as  difficult  to 
explain  to  a  foreigner  as  a  pun.  What  would  be- 
come of  a  great  part  of  the  wit  of  the  last  age  if 
it  were  tried  by  this  test?  How  would  certain 
topics,  as  aldermanity,  cuckoldry,  have  sounded 
to  a  Terentian  auditory,  though  Terence  himself 


468  E35ai20  ot  Blia, 

had  been  alive  to  translate  them  ?  Senator  urhanus 
with  Ciirruca  to  boot  for  a  synonyme,  would  b\it 
faintly  have  done  the  business.  Words,  involving 
notions,  are  hard  enough  to  render ;  it  is  too 
much  to  expect  us  to  translate  a  sound,  and  give 
an  elegant  version  to  a  jingle.  The  Virgilian  har- 
mony is  not  translatable  but  by  substituting  har- 
monious sounds  in  another  language  for  it  To 
Latinize  a  pun,  we  must  seek  a  pun  in  Latin  that 
will  answer  it ;  as  to  give  an  idea  of  the  double 
endings  in  Hudibras,  we  must  have  recourse  to 
a  similar  practice  in  the  old  monkish  doggerel. 
Dennis,  the  fiercest  oppugner  of  puns  in  ancient 
or  modern  times,  professes  himself  highly  tickled 
with  the  "a  stick,"'  chiming  to  "ecclesiastic." 
Yet  what  is  this  but  a  species  of  pun,  a  verbal 
consonance  ? 

IX. 

THAT   THE    WORST    PUNS    ARE   THE    BEST. 

If  by  worst  be  only  meant  the  most  far-fetched 
and  startling,  we  agree  to  it.  A  pun  is  not  bound 
by  the  laws  which  limit  nicer  wit.  It  is  a  pistol 
let  off  at  the  ear  ;  not  a  feather  to  tickle  the  intel- 
lect. It  is  an  antic  which  does  not  stand  upon 
manners,  but  comes  bounding  into  the  presence, 
and  does  not  show  the  less  comic  for  being 
dragged  in  sometimes  by  the  head  and  shoulders. 
What  though  it  limp  a  little,  or  prove  defective  in 
one  leg.-* — all  the  better.  A  pun  may  easily  be 
too  curious  and  artificial.  Who  has  not  at  one 
time  or  other  been  at  a  party  of  professors  (him- 
self perhaps  an  old  offender  in  that  line),  where. 


lC>opular  jfallacies*  469 

after  ringing  a  round  of  the  most  ingenious  con- 
ceits, every  man  contributing  his  shot,  and  some 
there  the  most  expert  shooters  of  the  day  ;  after 
making  a  poor  word  run  the  gauntlet  till  it  is 
ready  to  drop ;  after  hunting  and  winding  it 
through  all  the  possible  ambages  of  similar 
sounds ;  after  squeezing,  and  hauling,  and  tug- 
ging at  it  till  the  very  milk  of  it  will  not  yield  a 
drop  further, — suddenly  some  obscure,  unthought- 
of  fellow  in  a  corner  who  was  never  'prentice  to 
the  trade,  whom  the  company  for  very  pity  passed 
over,  as  we  do  by  a  known  poor  man  when  a 
money-subscription  is  going  round,  no  one  calling 
upon  him  for  his  quota, — has  all  at  once  come  out 
with  something  so  whimsical,  yet  so  pertinent ; 
so  brazen  in  its  pretensions,  yet  so  impossible  to 
be  denied  ;  so  exquisitely  good,  and  so  deplorably 
bad,  at  the  same  time, — that  \i  has  proved  a 
Robin  Hood's  shot  ;  any  thing  ulterior  to  that  is 
despaired  of;  and  the  party  breaks  up,  unani- 
mously voting  it  to  be  the  very  worst  (that  is, 
best)  pun  of  the  evening.  This  species  of  wit  is 
the  better  for  not  being  perfect  in  all  its  parts. 
What  it  gains  in  completeness,  it  loses  in  natural- 
ness. The  more  exactly  it  satisfies  the  critical, 
the  less  hold  it  has  upon  some  other  faculties. 
The  puns  which  are  most  entertaining  are  those 
which  will  least  bear  an  analysis.  Of  this  kind 
is  the  following,  recorded  with  a  sort  of  stigma,  in 
one  of  Swift's  Miscellanies  : 

An  Oxford  scholar,  meeting  a  porter  who  was 
carrying  a  hare  through  the  streets,  accosts  him 
with  this  extraordinary  question  :  ''Prithee,  friend, 
is  that  thine  own  hare  or  a  wig .''  " 

There  is  no  excusing  this,  and  no  resisting  it.    A 


470  }E55ai26  of  sua. 

man  might  blur  ten  sides  of  paper  in  attempting 
a  defence  of  it  against  a  critic  who  should  be 
laughter-proof.  The  quibble  in  itself  is  not  con- 
siderable. It  is  only  a  new  turn  given  by  a  little 
false  pronunciation,  to  a  very  common,  though 
not  very  courteous,  inquiry.  Put  by  one  gentle- 
man to  another  at  a  dinner  party,  it  would  have 
been  vapid ;  to  the  mistress  of  the  house,  it 
would  have  shown  much  less  wit  than  rudeness. 
We  must  take  in  the  totality  of  time,  place,  and 
person  ;  the  pert  look  of  the  inquiring  scholar, 
the  desponding  looks  of  the  puzzled  porter, — the 
one  stopping  at  leisure,  the  other  hurrying  on 
with  his  burden ;  the  innocent  though  rather 
abrupt  tendency  of  the  first  member  of  the  ques- 
tion, with  the  utter  and  inextricable  irrelevancy 
of  the  second  ;  the  place — a  public  street  not 
favorable  to  frivolous  investigations  ;  the  affront- 
Ive  quality  of  the  primitive  inquiry  (the  common 
question)  invidiously  transferred  to  the  deriva- 
tive (the  new  turn  given  to  it)  in  the  implied 
satire  ;  namely,  that  few  of  that  tribe  are  expected 
to  eat  of  the  good  things  which  they  carry,  they 
being  in  most  countries  considered  rather  as  the 
temporary  trustees  than  owners  of  such  dainties, 
— which  the  fellow  was  beginning  to  understand  ; 
but  then  the  wig  again  comes  in,  and  he  can 
make  nothing  of  it  ;  all  put  together  constitute  a 
picture  ;  Hogarth  could  have  made  it  intelligible 
on  canvas. 

Yet  nine  out  often  critics  will  pronounce  this  a 
very  bad  pun,  because  of  the  defectiveness  in  the 
concluding  member,  which  is  its  very  beauty,  and 
constitutes  the  surprise.  The  same  person  shall 
cry  up  for  admirable  the  cold  quibble  from  Virgil 


popular  3faUaciC6»  471 

about  the  broken  Cremona,*  because  it  is  made 
out  in  all  its  parts,  and  leaves  nothing  to  the 
imag-ination.  We  venture  to  call  it  cold,  because, 
of  thousands  who  have  admired  it,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  find  one  who  has  heartily  chuckled  at 
it.  As  appealing  to  the  judgment  merely  (setting 
the  risible  faculty  aside),  we  must  pronounce  it  a 
monument  of  curious  felicity.  But  as  some  stories 
are  said  to  be  too  good  to  be  true,  it  may  with  equal 
truth  be  asserted  of  this  biverbal  allusion,  that  it  is 
too  good  to  be  natural.  One  cannot  help  suspect- 
ing that  the  incident  was  invented  to  fit  the  line. 
It  would  have  been  better  had  it  been  less  perfect. 
Like  some  Virgilian  hemistichs,  it  has  suffered  by 
filling  up.  The  nhniunt  Vicina  was  enough  in 
conscience  ;  the  Crernonce  afterwards  loads  it.  It 
is  in  fact  a  double  pun  ;  and  we  have  always 
observed  that  a  superfoetation  in  this  sort  of  wit 
is  dangerous.  When  a  man  has  said  a  good  thing, 
it  is  seldom  politic  to  follow  it  up.  We  do  not 
care  to  be  cheated  a  second  time  ;  or,  perhaps,  the 
mind  of  man  (with  reverence  be  it  spoken)  is  not 
capacious  enough  to  lodge  two  puns  at  a  time. 
The  impression,  to  be  forcible,  must  be  simul- 
taneous and  undivided. 

X. 

THAT  HANDSOME  IS  THAT  HANDSOME  DOES. 

Those  who  use  this  proverb   can  never  have 
seen  Mrs.  Conrady. 

The  soul,  if  we  may  believe  Plotinus,  is  a  ray 

*  Swift. 


472  JBssa^s  ot  EHa. 

from  the  celestial  beauty.  As  she  partakes  more 
or  less  of  this  heavenly  light,  she  informs,  with 
corresponding  characters,  the  fleshly  tenement 
which  she  chooses,  and  frames  to  herself  a  suitable 
mansion. 

All  which  only  proves  that  the  soul  of  Mrs. 
Conrady,  in  her  preexistent  state,  was  no  great 
judge  of  architecture. 

To  the  same  effect,  in  a  hymn  in  honor  of 
Beauty,  divine  Spenser  platonizing^  sings  : — 

Every  spirit  as  it  is  more  pure, 

And  hath  in  it  the  more  of  heavenly  light, 

So  it  the  fairer  body  doth  procure 

To  habit  in,  and  it  more  fairly  dight  « 

With  cheerful  grace  and  amiable  sight. 

For  of  the  soul  the  body  form  doth  take  : 

For  soul  is  form  and  doth  the  body  make. 

But  Spenser  it  is  clear  never  saw  I\Irs.  Con- 
rady. 

These  poets,  we  find,  are  no  safe  guides  in 
philosophy  :  for  here,  in  his  very  next  stanza  but 
one,  is  a  saving  clause,  which  throws  us  all  out 
again,  and  leaves  us  as  much  to  seek  as  ever  : 


Yet  oft  it  falls,  that  many  a  gentle  mind 
Dwells  in  deformed  tabernacle  drown'd, 
Either  by  chance,  against  the  course  of  kind, 
Or  through  unaptness  in  the  substance  found, 
Which  it  assumed  of  some  stubborn  ground, 
That  will  not  yield  unto  her  form's  direction, 
But  is  performed  with  some  foul  imperfection. 

From   which   it  would  follow,  that  Spenser  had 
seen  somebody  like  Mrs.  Conrady. 


popular  ^fallacies.  473 

The  spirit  of  this  good  lady — her  previous 
anima — must  have  stumbled  upon  one  of  these 
untoward  tabernacles  which  he  speaks  of.  A 
more  rebellious  commodity  of  clay  for  a  ground, 
as  the  poet  calls  it,  no  gentle  mind — and  sure 
hers  is  one  of  the  gentlest — ever  had  to  deal 
with. 

Pondering  upon  her  inexplicable  visage, — in- 
explicable, we  mean,  but  by  this  modification  of 
the  theory — we  have  come  to  a  conclusion  that,  if 
one  must  be  plain,  it  is  better  to  be  plain  all  over, 
than  amidst  a  tolerable  residue  of  features,  to  hang 
out  one  that  shall  be  exceptionable.  No  one  can  say 
of  Mrs.Conrady's  countenance  that  it  would  be  bet- 
ter if  she  had  but  a  nose.  It  is  impossible  to  pull  her 
to  pieces  in  this  manner.  We  have  seen  the  most 
malicious  beauties  of  her  own  sex  baffled  in  the 
attempt  at  a  selection.  The  tout-ensemhle  defies 
particularizing.  It  is  too  complete — too  consistent 
as  we  may  say, — to  admit  of  these  invidious 
reservations.  It  is  not  as  if  some  Apelles  had 
picked  out  here  a  lip — and  there  a  chin — out  of  the 
collected  ugliness  of  Greece,  to  frame  a  model  by. 
It  is  a  symmetrical  whole.  We  challenge  the 
minutest  connoisseur  to  cavil  at  any  part  or  parcel 
of  the  countenance  in  question  ;  to  say  that  this, 
or  that,  is  improperly  placed.  We  are  convinced 
that  true  ugliness,  no  less  than  is  affirmed  of  true 
beauty,  is  the  result  of  harmony.  Like  that  too  it 
reigns  without  a  competitor.  No  one  ever  saw 
Mrs.  Conrady,  without  pronouncing  her  to  be  the 
plainest  woman  that  he  ever. met  with  in  the 
course  of  his  life.  The  first  time  that  you  are 
indulged  with  a  sight  of  her  face,  is  an  era  in 
your  existence  ever  after.     You  are  glad  to  have 


474    •  Essays  of  JBlia* 

seen  it — like  Stonehenge.  No  one  can  pretend 
to  forget  it.  No  one  ever  apologized  to  her  for 
meeting  her  in  the  street  on  such  a  day  and  not 
knowing  her ;  the  pretext  would  be  too  bare. 
Nobody  can  mistake  her  for  another.  Nobody 
can  say  of  her  :  "I  think  I  have  seen  that  face 
somewhere,  but  I  cannot  call  to  mind  where." 
You  must  remember  that  in  such  a  parlor  it  first 
struck  you — like  a  bust.  You  wondered  where 
the  owner  of  the  house  had  picked  it  up.  You 
wondered  more  when  it  began  to  move  its  lips — 
so  mildly  too  !  No  one  ever  thought  of  asking 
her  to  sit  for  her  picture.  Lockets  are  for  remem- 
brance ;  and  it  would  be  clearly  superfluous  to 
hang  an  image  at  your  heart,  which,  once  seen, 
can  never  be  out  of  it.  It  is  not  a  mean  face 
either ;  its  entire  originality  precludes  that. 
Neither  is  it  of  that  order  of  plain  faces  which 
improve  upon  acquaintance.  Some  very  good 
but  ordinary  people,  by  an  unwearied  persever- 
ance in  good  offices,  put  a  cheat  upon  our  eyes ; 
juggle  our  senses  out  of  their  natural  impressions  ; 
and  set  us  upon  discovering  good  indications  in  a 
countenance  which  at  first  sight  promised  nothing 
less.  We  detect  gentleness,  which  had  escaped 
us,  lurking  about  an  underlip.  But  when  Mrs. 
Conrady  has  done  )^ou  a  service,  her  face  remains 
the  same  ;  when  she  has  done  you  a  thousand, 
and  you  know  that  she  is  ready  to  double  the 
number,  still  it  is  that  individual  face.  Neither 
can  you  say  of  it,  that  it  would  be  a  good  face  if 
it  were  not  marked  by  the  small-pox, — a  compli- 
ment which  is  always  more  admissive  than  ex- 
cusatory,— for  either  Mrs.  Conrady  never  had  the 
small-pox,  or,  as  we    say,  took    it    kindly.      No, 


popular  jfallacies.  475 

it  stands  upon  its  own  merits  fairly.  There  it 
is.  It  is  her  mark,  her  token  ;  that  which  she  is 
known  by. 

XL 

THAT  WE  MUST  NOT  LOOK  A  GIFT  HORSE  IN  THE    MOUTH. 

Nor  a  lady's  age  in  the  parish  register.  We 
hope  we  have  more  delicacy  than  to  do  either  ; 
but  some  faces  spare  us  the  trouble  of  these  denial 
inquiries.  And  what  if  the  beast,  which  my 
friend  would  force  upon  my  acceptance,  prove, 
upon  the  face  of  it,  a  sorry  Rosinante,  a  lean,  ill- 
favored  jade,  whom  no  gentleman  could  think  of 
setting  up  in  his  stables .''  Must  I,  rather  than  not 
be  obliged  to  my  friend,  make  her  a  companion  to 
Eclipse  or  Lightfoot }  A  horse-giver,  no  more  than 
a  horse-seller,  has  a  right  to  palm  his  spavined 
article  upon  us  for  good  ware.  An  equivalent  is- 
expected  in  either  case  ;  and,  with  my  own  good- 
will, I  would  no  more  be  cheated  out  of  my  thanks 
than  out  of  my  money.  Some  people  have  a  knack 
of  putting  upon  you  gifts  of  no  real  value,  to  en- 
gage you  to  substantial  gratitude.  We  thank  them 
for  nothing.  Our  friend  Mitis  carries  this  humor 
of  never  refusing  a  present  to  the  very  point  of 
absurdity — if  it  were  possible  to  couple  the  ridicu- 
lous with  so  much  mistaken  delicacy  and  real 
good-nature.  Not  an  apartment  in  his  fine  house 
(and  he  has  a  true  taste  in  household  decorations) 
but  is  stuffed  up  with  some  preposterous  print  or 
mirror — the  worst  adapted  to  its  panels  that  may 
be, — the  presents  of  his  friends  that  knew  his  weak- 
ness ;  while  his  noble  Vandykes  are  displaced,  to 


476  iBsen^s  of  iSlia. 

make  room  for  a  set  of  daubs,  the  work  of  some 
wretched  artist  of  his  acquaintance,  who  having 
had  them  returned  upon  his  hands  for  bad  like- 
nesses, finds  his  account  in  bestowing  them  here 
gratis.  The  good  creature  has  not  the  heart  to 
mortify  the  painter  at  the  expense  of  an  honest 
refusal.  It  is  pleasant  (if  it  did  not  vex  one  at  the 
same  time)  to  see  him  sitting  in  his  dining-parlor, 
surrounded  with  obscure  aunts  and  cousins  to  God 
knows  whom,  while  the  true  Lady  Marys  and  Lady 
Bettys  of  his  own  honorable  family,  in  favor  to 
these  adopted  frights,  are  consigned  to  the  staircase 
and  the  lumber-room.  In  like  manner  his  goodly 
shelves  are  one  by  one  stripped  of  his  favorite  old 
authors,  to  give  place  to  a  collection  of  presenta- 
tion copies — the  flour  and  bran  of  modern  poetry. 
A  presentation  copy,  reader, — if  haply  you  are  yet 
innocent  of  such  favors, — is  a  copy  of  a  book  which 
does  not  sell,  sent  you  by  the  author,  with  his 
foolish  autograph  at  the  beginning  of  it  ;  for  which, 
if  a  stranger,  he  only  demands  your  friendship  ; 
if  a  brother  author,  he  expects  from  you  a  book 
of  yours,  which  does  sell,  in  return.  We  can 
speak  from  experience,  having  by  us  a  tolerable 
assortment  of  these  gift-horses.  Not  to  ride  a 
metaphor  to  death — we  are  willing  to  acknowl- 
edge that  in  some  gifts  there  is  sense.  A  dupli- 
cate out  of  a  friend's  library  (where  he  has  more 
than  one  copy  of  a  rare  author)  is  intelligible. 
There  are  favors  short  of  the  pecuniary — a  thing 
not  fit  to  be  hinted  at  among  gentlemen — which 
confer  as  much  grace  upon  the  acceptor  as  the 
offerer  ;  the  kind,  we  confess,  which  is  most  to 
our  palate,  is  of  those  little  conciliatory  missives, 
which  for  their  vehicle  generally  choose  a  hamper, 


popular  ^Fallacies.  477 

' — little  odd  presents  of  game,  fruit,  perhaps  wine, 
— though  it  is  essential  to  the  delicacy  of  the 
latter  that  it  be  home-made.  We  love  to  have 
our  friend  in  the  country  sitting  thus  at  our  table 
by  proxy  ;  to  apprehend  his  presence  (though  a 
hundred  miles  may  be  between  us)  by  a  turkey, 
whose  goodly  aspect  reflects  to  us  his  *' plump 
corpusculum  "  ;  to  taste  him  in  grouse  or  wood- 
cock :  to  feel  him  gliding  down  in  the  toast 
peculiar  to  the  latter ;  to  concorporate  him  in  a 
slice  of  Canterbury  brawn.  This  is  indeed  to 
have  him  within  ourselves ;  to  know  him  inti- 
mately ;  such  participation  is  methinks  unitive,  as 
the  old  theologians  phrase  it.  For  these  consid- 
erations we  should  be  sorry  if  certain  restrictive 
regulations,  which  are  thought  to  bear  hard  upon 
the  peasantry  of  this  country,  were  entirely  done 
away  with.  A  hare,  as  the  law  now  stands, 
makes  many  friends.  Caius  conciliates  Titius 
(knowing  his  gout)  with  a  leash  of  partridges. 
Titius  (suspecting  his  partiality  for  them)  passes 
them  to  Lucius  ;  who  in  his  turn,  preferring  his 
friend's  relish  to  his  own,  makes  them  over  to 
Marcius  ;  till  in  their  ever-widening  progress,  and 
round  of  unconscious  circummigration,  they  dis- 
tribute the  seeds  of  harmony  over  half  a  parish. 
We  are  well  disposed  to  this  kind  of  sensible  re- 
membrances ;  and  are  the  less  apt  to  be  taken  by 
those  little  airy  tokens — impalpable  to  the  palate 
— which,  under  the  names  of  rings,  lockets,  keep- 
sakes, amuse  some  people's  fancy  mightily.  We 
could  never  away  with  these  indigestible  trifles. 
They  are  the  very  kickshaws  and  foppery  of 
friendship. 


47S  jessavs  of  Blia, 

XII. 

THAT  HOME    IS  HOME,   THOUGH  IT    IS  NEVER  SO    HOMELY. 

Homes  there  are,  we  are  sure,  that  are  no 
homes  ;  the  home  of  the  very  poor  man,  and 
another  which  we  shall  speak  of  presently. 
Crowded  places  of  cheap  entertainment,  and  the 
benches  of  ale-houses,  if  they  could  speak,  might 
bear  mournful  testimony  to  the  first.  To  them 
the  very  poor  man  resorts  for  an  image  of  the 
home,  which  he  cannot  find  at  home.  For  a 
starved  grate,  and  a  scanty  firing,  that  is  not 
enough  to  keep  alive  the  natural  heat  in  the  fingers 
of  so  many  shivering  children  with  their  mother, 
he  finds  in  the  depths  of  winter  always  a  blazing 
hearth,  and  a  hob  to  warm  his  pittance  of  beer 
by.  Instead  of  the  clamors  of  a  wife,  made  gaunt 
by  famishing,  he  meets  with  a  cheerful  attendance 
beyond  the  merits  of  the  trifle  which  he  can  afford 
to  spend.  He  has  companions  which  his  home 
denies  him,  for  the  very  poor  man  has  no  visitors. 
He  can  look  into  the  goings  on  of  the  world,  and 
speak  a  little  of  politics.  At  home  there  are  no  poli- 
tics stirring,  but  the  domestic.  All  interests,  real 
or  imaginary,  all  topics  that  should  expand  the 
mind  of  man,  and  connect  him  to  a  sympathy 
with  general  existence,  are  crushed  in  the  absorb- 
ing consideration  of  food  to  be  obtained  for  the 
family.  Beyond  the  price  of  bread,  news  is  sense- 
less and  impertinent.  At  home  there  is  no  larder. 
Here  there  is  at  least  a  show  of  plenty  ;  and  while 
he  cooks  his  lean  scrap  of  butcher's  meat  before 
the  common  bars,   or  munches  his  humble  cold 


popular  3fallacfc0.  479 

viands,  his  relishing  bread  and  cheese  with  an 
onion,  in  a  corner,  where  no  one  reflects  upon  his 
poverty,  he  has  a  sight  of  the  substantial  joint 
providing  for  the  landlord  and  his  family.  He 
takes  an  interest  in  the  dressing  of  it  ;  and  while 
he  assists  in  removing  the  trivet  from  the  fire,  he 
feels  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  beef  and  cab- 
bage, which  he  was  beginning  to  forget  at  home. 
All  this  while  he  deserts  his  wife  and  children. 
But  what  wife,  and  what  children  ?  Prosperous 
men,  who  object  to  this  desertion,  image  to  them- 
selves some  clean,  contented  family  like  that 
which  they  go  home  to.  But  look  at  the  counte- 
nance of  the  poor  wives  who  follow  and  persecute 
their  goodman  to  the  door  of  the  public-house, 
which  he  is  about  to  enter,  when  something  like 
shame  would  restrain  him,  if  stronger  misery  did 
not  induce  him  to  pass  the  threshold.  That  face, 
ground  by  want,  in  which  every  cheerful,  every 
conversable  lineament  has  been  long  effaced  by 
misery, — is  that  a  face  to  stay  at  home  with.?  is 
it  more  a  woman  or  a  wild  cat  ?  alas  !  it  is  the  face 
of  the  wife  of  his  youth,  that  once  smiled  upon 
him.  It  can  smile  no  longer.  What  comforts  can 
it  share  ?  what  burdens  can  it  lighten  ?  Oh,  't  is 
a  fine  thing  to  talk  of  the  humble  meal  shared 
together  !  But  what  if  there  be  no  bread  in  the 
cupboard  ?  The  innocent  prattle  of  his  children 
takes  out  the  sting  of  a  man  s  poverty.  But  the 
children  of  the  very  poor  do  not  prattle.  It  is  none 
of  the  least  frightful  features  in  that  condition,  that 
there  is  no  childishness  in  its  dwellings.  Poor 
people,  said  a  sensible  old  nurse  to  us  once,  do  not 
bring  up  their  children  ;  they  drag  them  up.  The 
little  careless  darling  of  the  wealthier  nursery,  in 


480  JBe&n^s  of  JElia. 

their  hovel  is  transformed  betimes  into  a  premature 
reflecting-  person.  No  one  has  time  to  dandle  it ; 
no  one  thinks  it  worth  while  to  coax  it,  to  soothe 
it,  to  toss  it  up  and  down,  to  humor  it.  There  is 
none  to  kiss  away  its  tears.  If  it  cries,  it  can 
only  be  beaten.  It  has  been  prettily  said,  that 
**a  babe  is  fed  with  milk  and  praise."  But  the 
aliment  of  this  poor  babe  was  thin,  unnourish- 
ing  ;  the  return  to  its  little  baby-tricks,  and 
efforts  to  engage  attention,  bitter  ceaseless  ob- 
jurgation. It  never  had  a  toy,  or  knew  what  a 
coral  meant.  It  grew  up  without  the  lullaby  of 
nurses  ;  it  was  a  stranger  to  the  patient  fondle, 
the  hushing  caress,  the  attracting  novelty,  the 
costlier  plaything,  or  the  cheaper  off-hand  con- 
trivance to  divert  the  child  ;  the  prattled  nonsense 
(best  sense  to  it),  the  wise  impertinences,  the 
wholesome  lies,  the  apt  story  interposed,  that 
puts  a  stop  to  present  sufferings,  and  awakens 
the  passions  of  young  wonder.  It  was  never 
sung  to, — no  one  ever  told  to  it  a  tale  of  the  nurs- 
ery. It  was  dragged  up,  to  live  or  to  die,  as  it 
happened.  It  had  no  young  dreams.  It  broke 
at  once  into  the  iron  realities  of  life.  A  child 
exists  not  for  the  very  poor  as  any  object  of  dal- 
liance ;  it  is  only  another  mouth  to  be  fed,  a  pair 
of  little  hands  to  be  betimes  inured  to  labor.  It 
is  the  rival,  till  it  can  be  the  cooperator  for  food 
with  the  parent.  It  is  never  his  mirth,  his  diver- 
sion, his  solace  ;  it  never  makes  him  young  again, 
with  recalling  his  young  times.  The  children  of 
the  very  poor  have  no  young  times.  It  makes 
the  very  heart  to  bleed  to  overhear  the  casual 
street-talk  between  a  poor  woman  and  her  little 
girl,  a  woman  of  the  better  sort  of  poor,  in  a  con- 


popular  3fallacic3.  4S1 

dition  rather  above  the  squalid  beings  which  we 
have  been  contemplating.  It  is  not  of  toys,  of 
nursery  books,  of  summer  holidays  (fitting  that 
age)  ;  of  the  promised  sight,  or  play  ;  of  praised 
sufficiency  at  school  It  is  of  mangling  and  clear- 
starching, of  the  price  of  coals,  or  of  potatoes. 
The  questions  of  the  child,  that  should  be  the  very 
outpourings  of  curiosity  in  idleness,  are  marked 
with  forecast  and  melancholy  providence.  It  has 
come  to  be  a  woman — before  it  was  a  child.  It 
has  learned  to  go  to  market ;  it  chaffers,  it  hag- 
gles, it  envies,  it  murmurs  ;  it  is  knowing,  acute, 
sharpened ;  it  never  prattles.  Had  we  not  rea- 
son to  say,  that  the  home  of  the  very  poor  is  no 
home? 

There  is  yet  another  home,  which  we  are  con- 
strained to  deny  to  be  one.  It  has  a  larder,  which 
the  home  of  the  poor  man  wants ;  its  fireside 
conveniences,  of  which  the  poor  dream  not.  But, 
with  all  this,  it  is  no  home.  It  is — the  house  of  a 
man  that  is  infested  with  many  visitors.  May 
we  be  branded  for  the  veriest  churl  if  we  deny  our 
heart  to  the  many  noble-hearted  friends  that  at 
times  exchange  their  dwelling  for  our  poor  roof  I 
It  is  not  of  guests  that  we  complain,  but  of  end- 
less, purposeless  visitants  ;  droppers  in,  as  they 
are  called.  We  sometimes  wonder  from  what  sky 
they  fall.  It  is  the  very  error  of  the  position  of 
our  lodging ;  its  horoscopy  was  ill-calculated, 
being  just  situate  in  a  medium — a  plaguey  subur- 
ban midspace — fitted  to  catch  idlers  from  town  or 
country.  We  are  older  than  we  were,  and  age  is 
easily  put  out  of  its  way.  We  have  fewer  sands 
in  our  glass  to  reckon  upon,  and  we  cannot  brook 
to  see  them  drop  in  endlessly  succeeding  imperti- 
31 


482  }£00ai20  ot  :eiia. 

nences.  At  our  time  of  life  to  be  alone  some- 
times is  as  needful  as  sleep.  It  is  the  refreshing 
sleep  of  the  day.  The  growing-  infirmities  of  age 
manifest  themselves  in  nothing  more  strongly 
than  in  an  inveterate  dislike  of  interruption.  The 
thing  which  we  are  doing  we  wish  to  be  permitted 
to  do.  We  have  neither  much  knowledge  nor 
devices,  but  there  are  fewer  in  the  place  to  which 
we  hasten.  We  are  not  willingly  put  out  of  our 
way,  even  at  a  game  of  ninepins.  While  youth 
was,  we  had  vast  reversions  in  time  future ;  we 
are  reduced  to  a  present  pittance,  and  obliged  to 
economize  in  that  article.  We  bleed  away  our 
moments  now  as  hardly  as  our  ducats.  We  can- 
not bear  to  have  our  thin  wardrobe  eaten  and 
fretted  into  by  moths.  We  are  willing  to  barter 
our  good  time  with  a  friend,  who  gives  us  in  ex- 
change his  own.  Herein  is  the  distinction  between 
the  genuine  guest  and  the  visitant.  This  latter 
takes  your  good  time,  and  gives  you  his  bad  in 
exchange.  The  guest  is  domestic  to  you  as  your 
good  cat,  or  household  bird ;  the  visitant  is  your 
fly,  that  flaps  in  at  your  window,  and  out  again, 
leaving  nothing  but  a  sense  of  disturbance,  and 
victuals  spoiled.  The  inferior  functions  of  life 
begin  to  move  heavily.  We  cannot  concoct  our 
food  with  interruptions.  Our  chief  meal,  to  be 
nutritive,  must  be  solitary.  With  difficulty  we 
can  eat  before  a  guest ;  and  never  understood 
what  the  relish  of  public  feasting  meant.  I\Ieats 
have  no  sapor,  nor  digestion  fair  play,  in  a  crowd. 
The  unexpected  coming  in  of  a  visitant  stops  the 
machine.  There  is  a  punctual  generation  who 
time  their  calls  to  the  precise  commencement  of 
your  dinner  hour — not  to  eat — but  to  see  you  eat. 


IPopular  fallacies,  483 

Our  knife  and  fork  drop  instinctively,  and  we  feel 
that  we  have  swallowed  our  latest  morsel.  Others 
again  show  their  genius,  as  we  have  said,  in 
knocking  the  moment  you  have  just  sat  down  to 
a  book.  They  have  a  peculiar  compassionate 
sneer,  with  which  they  "hope  that  they  do  not 
interrupt  your  studies."  Though  they  flutter  off 
the  next  moment  to  carry  their  impertinences  to 
the  nearest  student  that  they  can  call  their  friend, 
the  tone  of  the  book  is  spoiled ;  we  shut  the 
leaves,  and,  with  Dante's  lovers,  read  no  more 
that  day.  It  were  well  if  the  effect  of  intrusion 
were  simply  coextensive  with  its  presence,  but 
it  mars  all  the  good  hours  afterwards.  These 
scratches  in  appearance  leave  an  orifice  that 
closes  not  hastily.  "It  is  a  prostitution  of  the 
bravery  of  friendship,"  says  worthy  Bishop  Tay- 
lor, "to  spend  it  upon  impertinent  people,  who 
are,  it  may  be,  loads  to  their  families,  but  can 
never  ease  my  loads."  This  is  the  secret  of  their 
gaddings,  their  visits,  and  morning  calls.  They 
too  have  homes,  which  are — no  homes. 


XIII. 

THAT   YOU    MUST   LOVE    ME    AND    LOVE    MY   DOG. 

"  Good  sir, — or  madam,  as  it  may  be — we 
most  willingly  embrace  the  offer  of  your  friend- 
ship. We  have  long  known  your  excellent  quali- 
ties. We  have  wished  to  have  you  nearer  to  us  ; 
to  hold  you  v/ithin  the  very  innermost  fold  of  our 
heart.  We  can  have  no  reserve  towards  a  person 
of  your  open  and  noble  nature.     The  frankness 


484  B36aig0  of  Blia, 

of  your  humor  suits  us  exactly.  We  have  been 
long  looking  for  such  a  friend.  Quick, — let  us 
disburden  our  troubles  into  each  other's  bosom, 
— let  us  make  our  single  joys  shine  by  reduplica- 
tion. Bui  jyap,  yap, yap  !  what  is  this  confounded 
cur .?  he  has  fastened  his  tooth,  which  is  none  of 
the  bluntest,  just  in  the  fleshy  part  of  my  leg." 

"It  is  my  dog,  sir.  You  must  love  him  for  my 
sake.      Here,  Test — Test — Test  !  " 

"  But  he  has  bitten  me." 

"Ay,  that  he  is  apt  to  do  till  you  are  better 
acquainted  with  him.  I  have  had  him  three  years. 
He  never  bites  me." 

Yap>, yap, yap ! — "  He  is  at  it  again." 

"Oh,  sir,  you  must  not  kick  him.  He  does 
not  like  to  be  kicked.  I  expect  my  dog  to  be 
treated  with  all  the  respect  due  to  myself" 

"But  do  you  always  take  him  out  with  you 
when  you  go  a  friendship-hunting.?  " 

"Invariably.  T  is  the  sweetest,  prettiest, 
best-conditioned  animal.  I  call  him  my  test — 
the  touchstone  by  which  to  try  a  friend.  No  one 
can  properly  be  said  to  love  me  who  does  not 
love  him." 

"Excuse  us,  dear  sir, — or  madam,  aforesaid, 
— if  upon  further  consideration  we  are  obliged  to 
decline  the  otherwise  invaluable  offer  of  your 
friendship.     We  do  not  like  dogs." 

"  IMighty  well,  sir,  you  know  the  conditions, 
you  may  have  worse  offers.     Come  along.  Test." 

The  above  dialogue  is  not  so  imaginary,  but 
that,  in  the  intercourse  of  life,  we  have  had  fre- 
quent occasions  of  breaking  off  an  agreeable 
intimacy  by  reason  of  these  canine  appendages. 
They   do  not  always  come  in  the  shape  of  dogs  ; 


popular  fallacies.  485 

they  sometimes  wear  the  more  plausible  and 
human  character  of  kinsfolk,  near  acquaintances, 
my  friend's  friend,  his  partner,  his  wife  or  his 
children.  We  could  never  yet  form  a  friendship, 
— not  to  speak  of  more  delicate  correspondence, 
— however  much  to  our  taste,  without  the  inter- 
vention of  some  third  anomaly,  some  impertinent 
clog  affixed  to  the  relation — the  understood  dog 
in  the  proverb.  The  good  things  of  life  are  not 
to  be  had  singly,  but  come  to  us  with  a  mixture, 
— like  a  school-boy's  holiday,  with  a  task  affixed 
to  the  tail   of  it.     What   a  delightful  companion 

is ,  if  he  did  not  always  bring  his  tall  cousin 

with  him !  He  seems  to  grow  with  him,  like 
some  of  those  double  births  which  we  remember 
to  have  read  of  with  such  wonder  and  delight  in 
the  old  ' '  Athenian  Oracle, "  where  Swift  com- 
menced author  by  writing  Pindaric  odes  (what  a 
beginning  for  him  !)  upon  Sir  William  Temple. 
There  is  the  picture  of  the  brother,  with  the  little 
brother  peeping  out  at  his  shoulder  ;  a  species  of 
fraternity,  which  we  have  no  name  of  kin  close 
enough  to  comprehend.  When comes,  pok- 
ing his  head  and  shoulder  into  your  room,  as  if  to 
feel  his  entry,  you  think,  surely  you  have  now 
got  him  to  yourself, — what  a  three  hours'  chat  we 
shall  have  ! — but  even  in  the  haunch  of  him,  and 
before  his  diffident  body  is  well  disclosed  in  your 
apartment,  appears  the  haunting  shadow  of  the 
cousin,  overpeering  his  modest  kinsman,  and  sure 
to  overlay  the  expected  good  talk  with  his  insuffer- 
able procerity  of  stature,  and  uncorresponding 
dwartishness  of  observation.  Misfortunes  seldom 
come  alone.  'T  is  hard  when  a  blessing  comes 
accompanied.     Cannot  we  like  Sempronia,  with- 


486  JBBsa^e  of  jSlfa. 

out  sitting  down  to  chess  with  her  eternal  brother? 
or  know  Sulpicia,  without  knowing  all  the  round 
of  her  card-playing  relations  ? — must  my  friend's 
brethren  of  necessity  be  mine  also  ?  must  we  be 
hand  in  glove  with  Dick  Selby  the  parson,  or 
Jack  Selby  the  calico-printer,  because  W.  S.,  who 
is  neither,  but  a  ripe  wit  and  critic,  has  the  mis- 
fortune to  claim  a  common  parentage  with  him  ? 
Let  him  lay  down  his  brothers  ;  and  't  is  odds  but 
we  will  cast  him  in  a  pair  of  ours  (we  have  a 
superflux)  to  balance  the  concession.  Let  F.  H. 
lay  down  his  garrulous  uncle  ;  and  Honorius  dis- 
miss his  vapid  wife,  and  superfluous  establish- 
ment of  six  boys — things  between  boy  and  man- 
hood— too  ripe  for  play,  too  raw  for  conversation 
— that  come  in,  impudently  staring  their  father's 
old  friend  out  of  countenance  ;  and  will  neither 
aid  nor  let  alone  the  conference  ;  that  we  may 
once  more  meet  upon  equal  terms,  as  we  were 
wont  to  do  in  the  disengaged  state  of  bachelor- 
hood. 

It  is  well  if  your  friend,  or  mistress,  be  content 
with  these  canicular  probations.  Few  young 
ladies  but  in  this  sense  keep  a  dog.  But  when 
Rutilia  hounds  at  you  her  tiger  aunt,  or  Ruspina 
expects  you  to  cherish  and  fondle  her  viper  sister, 
whom  she  has  preposterously  taken  into  her 
bosom  to  try  stinging  conclusions  upon  your  con- 
stancy ;  they  must  not  complain  if  the  house  be 
rather  thin  of  suitors.  Scylla  must  have  broken 
off  many  excellent  matches  in  her  time,  if  she 
insisted  upon  all  that  loved  her,  loving  her  dogs 
also. 

An  excellent  story  to  this  moral  is  told  of  I\Ierry, 
of  Delia  Cruscan  memory.     In  tender  youth  he 


lI>opular  jfallacfes.  487 

loved  and  courted  a  modest  appanage  to  the 
opera, — in  truth  a  dancer, — who  had  won  him 
by  the  artless  contrast  between  her  manners  and 
situation.  She  seemed  to  him  a  native  violet  that 
had  been  transplanted  by  some  rude  accident 
into  that  exotic  and  artificial  hotbed.  Nor,  in 
truth,  was  she  less  genuine  and  sincere  than  she 
appeared  to  him.  He  wooed  and  won  this  flower. 
Only  for  appearance'  sake,  and  for  due  honor  to  the 
bride  s  relations,  she  craved  that  she  might  have 
the  attendance  of  her  friends  and  kindred  at  the 
approaching  solemnity.  The  request  was  too 
amiable  not  to  be  conceded  ;  and  in  this  solicitude 
for  conciHating  the  good-will  of  mere  relations, 
he  found  a  presage  of  her  superior  attentions  to 
himself  when  the  golden  shaft  should  have  "  killed 
the  flock  of  all  affections  else."  The  morning 
came  ;  and  at  the  Star  and  Garter,  Richmond, — 
the  place  appointed  for  the  breakfasting, — accom- 
panied with  one  English  friend,  he  impatiently 
awaited  what  reinforcements  the  bride  should 
bring  to  grace  the  ceremony.  A  rich  muster  she 
had  made.  They  came  in  six  coaches — the  whole 
corps  du  ballet — French,  Italian,  men,  and  women. 
Monsieur  de  B. ,  the  famous  pirouetier  of  the  day, 
led  his  fair  spouse,  but  craggy,  from  the  banks  of 
the  Seine.  The  prima  donna  had  sent  her  excuse. 
But  the  first  and  second  buffa  were  there  ;  and 

Signor  Sc ,  and  Signor  Ch ,  and  Madame 

V ,    with    a    countless    cavalcade    besides    of 

chorusers,  figurantes!  at  the  sight  of  whom  Merry 
afterward  declared,  that  ''  then  for  the  first  time  it 
struck  him  seriously  that  he  was  about  to  marry — a 
dancer."  But  there  was  no  help  for  it.  Besides,  it 
was  her  day ;   these  were,  in  fact,  her  friends  and 


488  J£s6a^6  of  BHa. 

kinsfolk.  The  assemblage,  though  whimsical,  was 
all  very  natural.  But  when  the  bride — handing  out 
of  the  last  coach  a  still  more  extraordinary  ligure 
than  the  rest — presented  him  as  \vqx  father — the 
gentleman  that  was  to  give  her  away — no  less  a 
personage  than  Signor  Delpini  himself — with  a  sort 
of  pride,  as  much  as  to  say,  See  what  I  have  brought 
to  do  us  honor  ! — the  thought  of  so  extraordmary 
a  paternity  quite  overcame  him  ;  and  slipping 
away  under  some  pretence  from  the  bride  and  her 
motley  adherents,  poor  Merry  took  horse  from 
the  backyard  to  the  nearest  seacoast,  from  which, 
shipping  himself  to  America,  he  shortly  after  con- 
soled himself  with  a  more  congenial  match  in  the 
person  of  Miss  Brunton  ;  relieved  from  his  in- 
tended clown-father,  and  a  bevy  of  painted  buffas 
for  bridemaids. 

XIV. 

THAT  WE  SHOULD  RISE  WITH  THE  LARK. 

At  what  precise  minute  that  little  airy  musician 
doffs  his  night  gear,  and  prepares  to  tune  up  his 
unseasonable  matins,  we  are  not  naturalists 
enough  to  determine.  But  for  a  mere  human 
gentleman — that  has  no  orchestra  business  to  call 
him  from  his  warm  bed  to  such  preposterous  exer- 
cises— we  take  ten,  or  half  after  ten  (eleven,  of 
course,  during  this  Christmas  solstice),  to  be  the 
very  earliest  hour  at  which  he  can  begin  to  think 
of  abandoning  his  pillow.  To  think  of  it,  we 
say  ;  for  to  do  it  in  earnest  requires  another  half 
hour's  good  consideration.  Not  but  there  are 
pretty  sun-risings,  as  we  are  told,  and  such  like 


popular  jfallacfea.  489 

gauds,  abroad  in  the  world,  in  summer-time 
especially,  some  hours  before  what  we  have  as- 
signed ;  which  a  gentleman  may  see,  as  they  say, 
only  for  getting  up.  But  having  been  tempted 
once  or  twice,  in  earlier  life,  to  assist  at  those 
ceremonies,  we  confess  our  curiosity  abated. 
We  are  no  longer  ambitious  of  being  the  sun's 
courtiers,  to  attend  at  his  morning  levees.  We 
hold  the  good  hours  of  the  dawn  too  sacred  to 
waste  them  upon  such  observances  ;  which  have 
in  them,  besides,  something  Pagan  and  Persic. 
To  say  truth,  we  never  anticipated  x)ur  usual  hour, 
or  got  up  with  the  sun  (as  it  is  called),  to  go  a 
journey,  or  upon  a  foolish  whole  day's  pleasuring, 
but  we  suffered  for  it  all  the  long  hours  after  in 
listlessness  and  headaches ;  Nature  herself  suffi- 
ciently declaring  her  sense  of  our  presumption 
in  aspiring  to  regulate  our  frail  waking  courses 
by  the  measures  of  that  celestial  and  sleepless 
traveller.  We  deny  not  that  there  is  something 
sprightly  and  vigorous,  at  the  outset  especially, 
in  these  break-of-day  excursions.  It  is  flattering 
to  get  the  start  of  a  lazy  world  ;  to  conquer  death 
by  proxy  in  his  image.  But  the  seeds  of  sleep 
and  mortality  are  in  us  ;  and  we  pay  usually,  in 
strangequalms  before  night  falls,  thepenalty  of  the 
unnatural  inversion.  Therefore,  while  the  busy 
part  of  mankind  are  fast  huddling  on  their  clothes, 
are  already  up  and  about  their  occupations,  con- 
tent to  have  swallowed  their  sleep  by  wholesale, 
we  choose  to  linger  a-bed,  and  digest  our  dreams. 
It  is  the  very  time  to  recombine  the  wander- 
ing images,  which  night  in  a  confused  mass 
presented  ;  to  snatch  them  from  forgetfulness;  to 
shape  and  mould  them.     Some  people  have  no 


490  B00as0  of  ;6lia. 

good  of  their  dreams.  Like  fast  feeders,  they  gulp 
them  too  grossly,  to  taste  them  curiously.  We 
love  to  chew  the  cud  of  a  foregone  vision  ;  to 
collect  the  scattered  rays  of  a  brighter  phan- 
tasm, or  act  over  again,  with  firmer  nerves,  the 
sadder  nocturnal  tragedies ;  to  drag  into  day- 
light a  struggling  and  half-vanishing  nightmare  ; 
to  handle  and  examine  the  terrors,  or  the  airy 
solaces.  We  have  too  much  respect  for  these 
spiritual  communications  to  let  them  go  so  lightly. 
We  are  not  so  stupid,  or  so  careless  as  that  Impe- 
rial forgetter  of  his  dreams,  that  we  should  need  a 
seer  to  remind  us  of  the  form  of  them.  They  seem 
to  us  to  have  as  much  significance  as  our  waking 
concerns  ;  or  rather  to  import  us  more  nearly,  as 
more  nearly  we  approach  by  years  to  the  shad- 
owy world,  whither  we  are  hastening.  We  have 
shaken  hands  with  the  world's  business  ;  we  have 
done  with  it ;  we  have  discharged  ourselves  of  it. 
Why  should  we  get  up  ?  we  have  neither  suit  to  so- 
licit, nor  affairs  to  manage.  The  drama  has  shut  us 
up  at  the  fourth  act.  We  have  nothing  here  to  ex- 
pect, but  in  a  short  time  a  sick-bed,  and  a  dismissal. 
We  delight  to  anticipate  death  by  such  shadows 
as  night  affords.  We  are  already  half  acquainted 
with  ghosts.  We  were  never  much  in  the  world. 
Disappointment  early  struck  a  dark  veil  between  us 
and  its  dazzling  illusions.  Our  spirits  showed  gray 
before  our  hairs.  The  mighty  changes  of  the  world 
already  appear  as  but  the  vain  stuff  out  of  which 
dramas  are  composed.  We  have  asked  no  more 
of  life  than  what  the  mimic  images  in  playhouses 
present  us  with.  Even  those  types  have  waxed 
fainter.  Our  clock  appears  to  have  struck.  We 
are  superannuated.     In  this  dearth  of   mundane 


{popular  3fallacfe0.  491 

satisfaction,  we  contract  politic  alliances  with 
shadows.  It  is  good  to  have  friends  at  court. 
The  abstracted  media  of  dreams  seem  no  ill  intro- 
duction to  that  spiritual  presence,  upon  which,  in 
no  long  time,  we  expect  to  be  thrown.  We  are 
trying  to  know  a  little  of  the  usages  of  that  col- 
ony ;  to  learn  the  language,  and  the  faces  we 
shall  meet  with  there,  that  we  may  be  the  less 
awkward  at  our  first  coming  among  them.  We 
willingly  call  a  phantom  our  fellow,  as  knowing 
we  shall  soon  be  of  their  dark  companionship. 
Therefore,  we  cherish  dreams.  We  try  to  spell 
in  them  the  alphabet  of  the  invisible  world  ;  and 
think  we  know  already,  how  it  shall  be  with  us. 
These  uncouth  shapes  which,  while  we  clung  to 
flesh  and  blood,  affrighted  us,  have  become  fa- 
miliar. We  feel  attenuated  into  their  meagre  es- 
sences, and  have  given  the  hand  of  half-way  ap- 
proach to  incorporeal  being.  We  once  thought 
life  to  be  something;  but^it  has  unaccountably 
fallen  from  us  before  its  time.  Therefore  we 
choose  to  dally  with  visions.  The  sun  has  no 
purposes  of  ours  to  light  us  to.  Why  should  we 
get  up  ? 

XV. 

THAT  WE  SHOULD  LIE    DOWN  WITH  THE  LAMB. 

We  could  never  quite  understand  the  philoso- 
phy of  this  arrangement,  or  the  wisdom  of  our 
ancestors  in  sending  us  for  instruction  to  these 
woolly  bedfellows.  A  sheep,  when  it  is  dark, 
has  nothing  to  do  but  to  shut  his  silly  eyes,  arid 
sleep  if  he  can.      Man  found  out  long  sixes.      Hail, 


492  iBes^^e  ot  Blia. 

candle-light !  without  disparagement  to  sun  or 
moon,  the  kindliest  luminary  of  the  three, — if  we 
may  not  rather  style  thee  their  radiant  deputy, 
mild  viceroy  of  the  moon  !  We  love  to  read, 
talk,  sit  silent,  eat,  drink,  sleep  by  candle-light. 
Candles  are  everybody's  sun  and  moon.  This  is 
our  peculiar  and  household  planet.  Wanting  it, 
what  savage  unsocial  nights  must  our  ancestors 
have  spent,  wintering  in  caves  and  unillumined 
fastnesses.  They  must  have  lain  about  and 
grumbled  at  one  another  in  the  dark.  What  rep- 
artees could  have  passed  when  you  must  have 
felt  about  for  a  smile,  and  handled  a  neighbors 
cheek  to  be  sure  that  he  understood  it  ?  This  ac- 
counts for  the  seriousness  of  the  elder  poetry.  It 
has  a  sombre  cast  (try  Hesiod  or  Ossian),  derived 
from  the  tradition  of  those  unlanterned  nights. 
Jokes  came  in  with  candles.  We  wonder  how 
they  saw  to  pick  up  a  pin.  if  they  had  any  pins. 
How  did  they  sup  ?  what  a  7nelange  of  chance 
carving  they  must  have  made  of  it  ! — here  one 
had  got  a  leg  of  a  goat,  when  he  wanted  a  horse's 
shoulder — there  another  had  dipped  his  scooped 
palm  in  a  kid-skin  of  wild  honey,  when  he  medi- 
tated right  mare's  milk.  There  is  neither  good 
eating  nor  drinking  in  fresco.  Who,  even  in 
these  civilized  times,  has  never  experienced  this, 
when  at  some  economic  table  he  has  commenced 
dining  after  dusk,  and  waited  for  the  flavor  till 
the  lights  came  .?  The  senses  absolutely  give  and 
take  reciprocally.  Can  you  tell  pork  from  veal 
in  the  dark.?  or  distinguish  Sherris  from  pure 
Malaga.?  Take  away  the  candle  from  the  smok- 
ing man  :  by  the  glimmering  of  the  left  ashes  he 
knows  that  he  is  still  smoking,  but  he  knows  it 


popular  3fallacle0.  493 

only  by  an  inference  ;  till  the  restored  light,  com- 
ing in  aid  of  the  olfactories,  reveals  to  both  senses 
the  full  aroma.  Then  how  he  redoubles  his 
puffs  !  how  he  burnishes  !  There  is  absolutely 
no  such  thing  as  reading  but  by  a  candle.  We 
have  tried  the  affectation  of  a  book  at  noonday 
in  gardens  and  in  sultry  arbors,  but  it  was  labor 
thrown  away.  Those  gay  motes  in  the  beam 
come  about  you,  hovering  and  teasing,  like  so 
many  coquettes,  that  will  have  you  all  to  them- 
selves, and  are  jealous  of  your  abstractions.  By 
the  midnight  taper  the  writer  digests  his  medita- 
tions. By  the  same  light  we  must  approach  to 
their  perusal,  if  we  would  catch  the  flame,  the 
odor.  It  is  a  mockery,  all  that  is  reported  of  the 
influential  Phoebus.  No  true  poem  ever  owed  its 
birth  to  the  sun's  light.  They  are  abstracted 
works — 

Things  that  were  bom  when  none  but  the  still  night 
And  his  dumb  candle  saw  his  pinching  throes. 

Marry,  daylight — daylight  might  furnish  the  im- 
ages, the  crude  material,  but  for  the  fine  shapings, 
the  true  turning  and  filing  (as  mine  author  hath 
it),  they  must  be  content  to  hold  their  inspiration  of 
the  candle.  The  mild  internal  light  that  reveals 
them,  like  fires  on  the  domestic  hearth,  goes  out 
in  the  sunshine.  Night  and  silence  call  out  the 
starry  fancies.  Milton's  '*  Morning  Hymn  in 
Paradise,"  we  would  hold  a  good  wager,  was 
penned  at  midnight,  and  Taylor's  rich  description 
of  a  sunrise  smells  decidedly  of  the  taper.  Even 
ourself,  in  these  our  humbler  lucubrations,  tune 
our  best-measured  cadences  (Prose  has  her  ca- 
dences) not  unfrequently  to  the  charm  of  the  dro  w- 


494  Bseasa  ot  Blia. 

sier  watchman  "  blessing  the  doors,"  or  the  wild 
sweep  of  winds  at  midnight.  Even  now  a  loftier 
speculation  than  we  have  yet  attempted  courts  our 
endeavors.  We  would  indite  some  thing  about 
the  Solar  System, — Betty,  bring  the  candles. 


XVI. 

THAT  A  SULKY  TEMPER  IS    A  MISFORTUNE. 

We  grant  that  it  is,  and  a  very  serious  one — to 
a  man's  friends,  and  to  all  that  have  to  do  with 
him  ;  but  whether  the  condition  of  the  man  him- 
self is  so  much  to  be  deplored,  may  admit  of  a 
question.  We  can  speak  a  little  to  it,  being  our- 
selves but  lately  recovered — we  whisper  it  in  con- 
fidence, reader — out  of  a  long  and  desperate  fit  of 
the  sullens.  Was  the  cure  a  blessing .?  The  con- 
viction which  wrought  it  came  too  clearly  to  leave 
a  scruple  of  the  fanciful  injuries — for  they  were 
mere  fancies — which  had  provoked  the  humor. 
But  the  humor  itself  was  too  self-pleasing,  while 
it  lasted — we  know  how  bare  we  lay  ourselves  in 
the  confession — to  be  abandoned  all  at  once  with 
the  grounds  of  it.  We  still  brood  over  wrongs 
which  we  know  to  have  been  imaginary  ;  and  for 

our  old  acquaintance  N ,    whom  we  find    to 

have  been  a  truer  friend  than  we  took  him  for, 
we  substitute  some  phantom — a  Caius  or  a  Titius 
— as  like  him  as  we  dare  to  form  it,  to  wreak  our 
yet  unsatisfied  resentments  on.  It  is  mortifying 
to  fall  at  once  from  the  pinnacle  of  neglect,  to 
forego  the  idea  of  having  been  ill-used  and  con- 
tumaciously treated  by  an  old  friend.     The  first 


popular  3fallacfe5.  495 

thing  to  aggrandize  a  man  in  his  own  conceit,  is 
to  conceive  of  himself  as  neglected.  There  let 
him  fix  if  he  can.  To  undeceive  him  is  to  de- 
prive him  of  the  most  tickling  morsel  within  the 
range  of  self-complacency.  No  flattery  can  come 
near  it.  Happy  is  he  who  suspects  his  friend  of 
an  injustice  ;  but  supremely  blest,  who  thinks  all 
his  friends  in  a  conspiracy  to  depress  and  under- 
value him.  There  is  a  pleasure  (we  sing  not  to 
the  profane)  far  beyond  the  reach  of  all  that  the 
world  calls  joy — a  deep,  enduring  satisfaction 
in  the  depths,  where  the  superficial  seek  it  not, 
of  discontent.  Were  we  to  recite  one  half  of 
this  mystery, — which  we  were  let  into  by  our  late 
dissatisfaction,  all  the  world  would  be  in  love  with 
disrespect ;  we  should  wear  a  slight  for  a  bracelet, 
and  neglects  and  contumacies  would  be  the  only 
matter  for  courtship.  Unlike  to  that  mysterious 
book  in  the  Apocalypse,  the  study  of  this  mystery 
is  unpalatable  only  in  the  commencement.  The 
first  sting  of  a  suspicion  is  grievous  ;  but  wait — out 
of  that  wound,  which  to  flesh  and  blood  seemed  so 
difficult,  there  are  balm  and  honey  to  be  extracted. 
Your  friend  passed  you  on  such  or  such  a  day, — 
having  in  his  company  one  that  you  conceived 
worse  than  ambiguously  disposed  toward  you, — 
passed  you  in  the  street  without  notice.  To  be  sure 
he  is  something  shortsighted  ;  and  it  was  in  your 
power  to  have  accosted  him.  But  facts  and  sane 
inferences  are  trifles  to  a  true  adept  in  the  science 
of  dissatisfaction.      He  must  have  seen  you  ;  and 

S ,  who  was  with  him,   must  •  have  been   the 

cause  of  the  contempt.  It  galls  you,  and  well  it 
may.  But  have  patience.  Go  home  and  make 
the  worst  of  it,   and  you  are  a  made   man  from 


496  Bagai^s  of  BUa. 

this  time.  Shut  yourself  up,  and — rejecting,  as 
an  enemy  to  your  peace,  every  whispered  sugges- 
tion that  but  insinuates  there  may  be  a  mistake — 
reflect  seriously  upon  the  many  lesser  instances 
which  you  had  begun  to  perceive,  in  proof  of  your 
friend's  disaffection  towards  you.  None  of  them 
singly  was  much  to  the  purpose,  but  the  aggre- 
gate weight  is  positive  ;  and  you  have  this  last 
affront  to  clench  them  ;  thus  far  the  process  is  any 
thing  but  agreeable.  But  now  to  your  relief  comes 
in  the  comparative  faculty.  You  conjure  up  all 
the  kind  feelings  you  have  had  for  your  friend  ; 
what  you  have  been  to  him,  and  what  you 
would  have  been  to  him,  if  he  would  have  suf- 
fered you ;  how  you  defended  him  in  this  or 
that  place  ;  and  his  good  name — his  literary  repu- 
tation, and  so  forth,  was  always  dearer  to  you 
than  your  own  !  Your  heart,  spite  of  itself,  yearns 
towards  him.  You  could  weep  tears  of  blood, 
but  for  a  restraining  pride.  How  say  you  !  do 
you  not  yet  begin  to  apprehend  a  comfort  ?  some 
allay  of  sweetness  in  the  bitter  waters  ?  Stop  not 
here,  nor  penuriously  cheat  yourself  of  your  re- 
versions. You  are  on  vantage  ground.  Enlarge 
your  speculations,  and  take  in  the  rest  of  your 
friends,  as  a  spark  kindles  more  sparks.  Was 
there  one  among  them  who  has  not  to  you  proved 
hollow,  false,  slippery  as  water  ?  Begin  to  think 
that  the  relation  itself  is  inconsistent  with  mor- 
tality. That  the  very  idea  of  friendship,  with  its 
component  parts,  as  honor,  fidelity,  steadiness, 
exists  but  in  yOur  single  bosom.  Image  yourself 
to  yourself,  as  the  only  possible  friend  in  a  world 
incapable  of  that  communion.  Now  the  gloom 
thickens.     The   little  star  of  self-love   twinkles, 


popular  ifallacfea.  497 

that  is  to  encourage  you  through  deeper  glooms 
than  this.  You  are  not  yet  at  the  half-point  of 
your  elevation.  You  are  not  yet^  believe  me,  half 
sulky  enough.  Adverting  to  the  world  in  general 
(as  these  circles  in  the  mind  will  spread  to  infinity) 
reflect  with  what  strange  injustice  you  have  been 
treated  in  quarters  where  (setting  gratitude  and 
the  expectation  of  friendly  returns  aside  as  chi- 
meras) you  pretended  no  claim  beyond  justice,  the 
naked  due  of  all  men.  Think  the  very  idea  of 
right  and  fit  fled  from  the  earth,  or  your  breast 
the  solitary  receptacle  of  it,  till  you  have  swelled 
yourself  into  at  least  one  hemisphere  ;  the  other 
being  the  vast  Arabia  Stony  of  your  friends 
and  the  world  aforesaid.  To  grow  bigger  every 
moment  in  your  own  conceit,  and  the  world  to 
lessen  ;  to  deify  yourself  at  the  expense  of  your 
species  ;  to  judge  the  world — this  is  the  acme  and 
supreme  point  of  your  mystery, — these  the  true 
Pleasures  of  Sulkiness.  We  profess  no  more  of 
this  grand  secret  than  what  ourself  experimented 
on  one  rainy  afternoon  in  the  last  week  sulking 
in  our  study.  We  had  proceeded  to  the  penulti- 
mate point,  at  which  the  true  adept  seldom  stops, 
where  the  consideration  of  benefit  forgot  is  about 
to  merge  in  the  meditation  of  general  injustice — 
when  a  knock  at  the  door  was  followed  by  the 
entrance  of  the  very  friend  whose  not  seeing  of  us 
in  the  morning  (for  we  will  now  confess  the  case 
our  own),  an  accidental  oversight,  had  given  rise 
to  so  much  agreeable  generalization  !  To  morti- 
fy us  still  more,  and  take  down  the  whole  flatter- 
ing superstructure  which  pride  had  piled  upon 
neglect,  he  had  brought  in  his  hand  the  identical 
S — r^,  in  whose  favor  we  had  suspected  him  of 
32 


498  iBsen^s  ot  jeiia. 

contumacy.  Asseveration  were  needless,  where 
the  frank  manner  of  them  both  was  convictive  of 
the  mjurious  nature  of  the  suspicion.  We  fancied 
that  they  perceived  our  embarrassment,  but  were 
too  proud,  or  something  else,  to  confess  the  secret 
of  it.  We  had  been  but  too  lately  in  the  condition 
of  the  noble  patient  in  Argos  : 

Qui  se  credebat  miros  audire  tragcedos, 
In  vacus  laetus  sessor  plausorque  theatro — 

and  could  have  exclaimed  with  equal  reason 
against  the  friendly  hands  that  cured  us — 

Pol,  me  occidistis,  amici, 
Non  servastis,  ait ;  cui  sic  extorta  voluptas, 
Et  demptus  per  vim  mentis  gratissimus  error. 


THE  END. 


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4.  Thoughts  of  the  Emperor  Marcus  Aurelius  Anto- 

ninus.    Translated  by  George  Long. 

5.  A  Selection  from  the  Discourses  of  Epictetus  with 

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6.  Essays,  First  Series.     By  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

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ITbe  aitcmus  Xibrari^. 

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silver, 75  cents. 

Half-crushed  levant,  super-extra  hand-finished,  gold 
tops,  untrimmed  edges,  sewn  with  silk.         .       $1.50. 

Half  genuine  English  calf,  super- extra  hand-finished, 
gold  tops,  untrimmed  edges,  sewn  with  silk,   .   $1.7$. 

HENRY  ALTEMUS,  Publisher,  Philadelphia. 


Date  Due 

B     000  008  433 


:^  ^.  \^^ 


